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5   3  • 


QUEEN   MARGARET   AND   THE   ROBBERS. 


CHILD'S 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


CHARLES   DICKENS. 


CHICAGO  AND  NEW  YORK : 
BELFORD,    CLARKE   &   CO. 

1887. 


O  H  3^ 


X'^^J 


•  «*  •    • 
•  •  • 


♦  •    •  •  •  . . 


•  •••,•*•••. 


CONTENTS. 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 

CHAP.  ,  rAG* 

> .  Ancient  England  and  the  Romans . , <.,.,.  7 

II,  Ancient  England  under  the  early  Saxons 15 

III.  England  under  the  good  Saxon^  Alfred 19 

IV.  England  under  Athelstan  and  the  six  boy  kings. ...  25 
V.  England  under  Canute  the  Dane 35 

VI.  England  under  Harold  Harefoot,  Hardicanute,  and 

Edward  the  Confessor , . .  36 

VII.  England  under  Harold   the  Second,  and  conquered 

by  the  Normans 43 

VIII.  England    under  William    the  First,   the    Norman 

Conqueror  .,..,. 4/ 

IX.  England  under  William  the  Second,  called  Rufus. .  53 

X.  England  under  Henry  the  First,  called  Fine-Scholar  59 

XL  England  under  Matilda  and   Stephen 68 

XII.  England  under  Henry  the  Second 71 

XIII.  England  under  Richard  the  First,  called  the  Lion- 
Heart  &8 

XIV.  England  under  King  John,  called  Lackland 9€ 

XV.  England  under  Henry  the  Thirds  called  Henry  the 

Third  of  Winchester 107 

XVI.  England    under   Edward   the   First,  called   Long- 
shanks 118 

XVII.  England  under  Edward  the  Second 133 

XVI 1 1.  England  under  Edward  the  Third 141 

XIX.  England  under  Richard  the  Second 152 

XX.  England  under  Henry  the   Fourth,  called  Boling- 

broke 162 

XXI.  England  under  Henry  the  Fifth 167 

XXII.  England  under  Henry  tha  Sixth 176 

XXIII.  England  under  Edward  the  Fourth.  ..,♦ «t«  193 

(v> 


M101159 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  PAGB. 

XXIV.  England  under  Edward  the  Fifth 200 

XXV.  England  under  Richard  the  Third 204 

XXVI.  Enghuul  under  Henry  the  Seventh ,    .   . .   208 

XXVII.  England  under  Henry  the  Eighth,  called  Bluff  King 

Hal,  and  Burly  King  Harry 218 

XXVIII.  England  under  Henry  the  Eighth 228 

XXIX.  England  under  Edward  the  Sixth 237 

XXX.  England  under  Mary «    .   244 

XXXI.  England  under  Elizabeth 255 

XXXII.  England  under  James  the  First c    ..   277 

XXXI I I.  England  under  Charles  the  First 292 

XXX IV.  England  under  Oliver  Cromwell 317 

XXXV.  England  under  Charles  the  Second,  called  the  Merry 

Monarch 332 

XXXVT.  Englano  under  James  the  Second 351 

XXXVII.  Conclusion 363 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  I.. 

ANCIENT   ENGLAND   AND   THE   ROMANS. 

If  you  look  at  a  map  of  the  world,  you  will  see,  in  the  left- 
hand  upper  corner  of  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  two  islands 
lying  in  the  sea.  They  are  England  and  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 
England  and  Scotland  form  the  greater  part  of  these  islands. 
Ireland  is  the  next  in  size.  The  little  neighboring  islands, 
which  are  so  small  upon  the  map  as  to  be  mere  dots,  are  chiefly 
little  bits  of  Scotland, — broken  off,  I  dare  say,  in  the  course  of 
a  great  length  of  time,  by  the  power  of  the  restless  water. 

In  the  old  days, along,  long  while  ago,  before  our  Savioul 
was  born  on  earth,  and  lay  asleep  in  the  manger,  these  islands 
were  in  the  same  place  ;  and  the  stormy  sea  roared  round  them, 
just  as  it  roars  now.  But  the  sea  was  not  alive  then  with  great 
ships  and  brave  sailors,  sailing  to  and  from  all  paits  of  the 
world.  It  was  very  lonely.  The  islands  lay  solitary  in  the 
great  expanse  of  water.  The  foaming  waves  dashed  against 
their  cliffs,  and  the  bleak  winds  blew  over  their  forests.  But 
the  winds  and  waves  brought  no  adventurers  to  land  upon  the 
islands  ;  and  the  savage  islanders  knew  nothing  of  the  rest  of 
the  world,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  knew  nothing  of  them. 

It  is  supposed  that  the  Phoenicians,  who  were  an  ancient 
people,  famous  for  carrying  on  trade,  came  in  ships  to  these 
islands,  and  found  that  they  produced  tin  and  lead  ;  both  very 
useful  things,  as  you  know,  and  both  produced  to  this  very 
hour  upon  the  sea-coast.  The  most  celebrated  tin-mines  in  Corn- 
Wall  are  still  close  to  the  sea.     One  of  them,  which  I  have  seen, 


f  A  CHILD'S  HIS'^ORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

is  SO  close  to  it  that  it  is  hollowed  out  underneath  the  ocean ; 
and  the  miners  say  that  in  stormy  weather,  when  they  are  at 
work  down  in  that  deep  place,  they  can  hear  the  noise  of  the 
waves  thundering  above  their  heads. .  So  the  Phoenicians,  coast- 
ing about  the  islands,  would  come,  without  much  difficulty,  to 
where  the  tin  and  lead  were. 

The  Phoenicians  traded  with  the  islanders  for  these  metals, 

and  gave  the  islanders  some  other  useful  things  in  exchange. 

The  islanders  were,  at  first,  poor  savages,  going  almost  naked, 

or  only  dressed  in  the  rough  skins  of  beasts,  and  staining  their 

bodies,  as  other  savages  do,  with  colored  earths  and  the  juices 

of  plants.     But  the  Phoenicians  sailing  over  to  the  opposite 

coasts  of  France  and  Belgium,  and  saying  to  the  people  there, 

.5*\Ye  have  been.tp  Jhose  white  cliffs  across  the  water,  which 

'y6ii' can, SQC  rn'snlnie  weather  ;  and  from  that  country,  which  is 

,  palled,  Britain,  we  bring  this  tin  and  lead,"  tempted  some  of  the 

.'  YftftViff'ii  and;  Pelgi?,ri,s  to.  come  over  also.     These  people  s^'/tled 

'  themselves  oh  the  south  coast  of  England,  which  is  now  cah.d 

Kent ;  and,  although  they  were  a  rough  people  too,  they  taught 

the  savage  Britons  some  useful  arts,  and  improved  that  part  of 

the  islands.     It  is  probable  that  other  people  came  over  from 

Spain  to  Ireland,  and  settled  there. 

Thus,  by  little  and  little,  strangers  became  mixed  with  the 
islanders,  and  the  savage  Britons  grew  into  a  wild,  bold  people  \ 
almost  savage  still,  especially  in  the  interior  of  the  country, 
away  from  the  sea,  where  the  foreign  settlers  seldom  went ;  but 
hardy,  brave,  and  strong. 

The  whole  country  was  covered  with  forests  and  swamps. 
The  greater  part  of  it  was  very  misty  and  cold.  There  were  no 
roads,  no  bridges,  no  streets,  no  houses  that  you  would  think  de- 
serving of  the  name.  A  town  was  nothing  but  a  collection  of 
straw-covered  huts,  hidden  in  a  thick  wood,  with  a  ditch  all  round, 
and  a  low  wall  made  of  mud,  or  the  trunks  of  trees  placed  one 
upon  another.  The  people  planted  little  or  no  corn,  but  lived 
upon  the  flesh  of  their  flocks  and  cattle.  They  made  no  coins, 
but  used  metal-rings  for  money.  They  were  clever  in  basket- 
work,  as  savage  people  often  are ;  and  they  could  make  a 
coarse  kind  of  cloth,  and  some  very  bad  earthenware.  But  in 
building  fortresses  they  were  much  more  clever. 

They  made  boats  of  basket-work,  covered  with  the  skins  of 
animals,  but  seldom,  if  ever,  ventured  far  from  the  shore.  They 
made  swords  of  copper  mixed  with  tin  ;  but  these  swords  were 
of  an  awkward  shape,  and  so  soft  that  a  heavy  blow  would  bend 
Aie,     Thev  made  lism  shields  ;  short,  pointed  daggers ;  and 


ANCIENT  EN Lr LAND  AND  THE  ROMANS.  ^ 

spears,  which  they  jerked  back,  after  they  had  thrown  them  at 
an  enemy,  by  a  long  strip  of  leather  fastened  to  the  stem.  The 
butt-end  was  a  rattle,  to  frighten  an  enemy's  horse.  The  ancient 
Britons,  being  divided  into  as  many  as  thirty  or  forty  tribes, 
each  commanded  by  its  own  little  king,  were  constantly  fighting 
with  one  another,  as  savage  people  usually  do;  and  they  always 
fought  with  these  weapons. 

They  were  fond  of  horses.  The  standard  of  Kent  was 
the  picture  of  a  white  horse.  They  could  break  them  in  and  man- 
age them  wonderfully  well.  Indeed,  the  horses  (of  which  they 
had  an  abundance,  though  they  were  rather  small)  were  so  well 
taught  in  those  days,  that  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  im- 
proved since ;  though  the  men  are  so  much  wiser.  They  un- 
derstood and  obeyed  every  word  of  command;  and  would  stand 
still  by  themselves,  in  all  the  din  and  noise  of  battle,  while 
their  masters  went  to  fight  on  foot.  The  Britons  could  not 
have  succeeded  in  their  most  remarkable  art  without  the  aid  of 
these  sensible  and  trusty  animals.  The  art  I  mean  is  the  con- 
struction and  management  of  war-chariots,  or  cars;  for  which 
they  have  ever  been  celebrated  in  history.  Each  of  the  best 
sort  of  these  chariots,  not  quite  breast-high,  in  front  and  open 
at  the  back,  contained  one  man  to  drive,  and  two  or  three 
others  to  fight, — all  standing  up.  The  horses  who  drew  them 
were  so  well  trained,  that  they  would  tear  at  full  gallop  over 
the  most  stony  ways,  and  even  through  the  woods;  dashing 
down  their  masters'  enemies  beneath  their  hoofs,  and  cutting 
them  to  pieces  with  the  blades  of  swords,  or  scythes  which 
were  fastened  to  the  wheels,  and  stretched  out  beyond  the  car 
on  each  side  for  that  cruel  purpose.  In  a  moment  while  at 
full  speed,  the  horses  would  stop  at  the  driver's  command. 
The  men  would  leap  out,  deal  blows  about  them  with  their 
swords,  like  hail,  leap  on  the  horses,  on  the  pole,  spring  back 
into  the  chariots  anyhow;  and  as  soon  as  they  were  safe,  the 
horses  tore  away  again. 

The  Britons  had  a  strange  and  terrible  religion,  called  the 
religion  of  the  Druids.  It  seems  to  have  been  brought  over, 
in  very  early  times  indeed,  from  the  opposite  country  of  France, 
anciently  called  Gaul,  and  to  have  mixed  up  the  worship  of  the 
Serpent,  and  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  with  the  worship  of  some 
of  the  heathen  gods  and  goddesses.  Most  of  its  ceremonies 
were  kept  secret  by  the  priests, — the  Druids, — who  pretended 
to  be  enchanters,  and  who  carried  magicians'  wands,  and  wore, 
each  of  them,  about  his  neck,  what  he  told  the  ignorant  people 
was  a  serpent's  egg  in  a  golden  case.     But  it  is  certain  that  the 


ro  A  CHILUS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Druidical  ceremonies  included  the  sacrifice  of  human  vic- 
tims, the  torture  of  some  suspected  criminals,  and,  on  par- 
ticular occasions,  even  the  burning  alive,  in  immense  wicker- 
cages,  of  a  number  of  men  and  animals  together.  The 
Druid  priests  had  some  kind  of  veneration  for  the  oak,  and 
for  the  mistletoe  (the  same  plant  that  we  hang  up  in  houses 
at  Christmas-time  now)  when  its  white  berries  grew  upon 
the  oak.  They  met  together  in  dark  woods,  which  they 
called  sacred  groves;  and  there  they  instructed,  in  their 
mysterious  arts,  young  men  who  came  to  them  as  pupils. 

These  Druids  built  great  temples  and  altars  open  to  the 
sky,  fragments  of  some  of  which  yet  remain.  Stonehenge, 
on  Salisbury  Plain,  is  the  most  extraordinary.  Three  cu- 
rious stones,  called  Kits  Coty  House,  on  Bluebell  Hill,  near 
Maidstone,  in  Kent,  form  another.  We  know,  from  exam- 
ination of  the  great  blocks  of  which  such  buildings  are 
made,  that  they  could  not  have  been  raised  without  the  aid 
of  some  ingenious  machines  which  are  common  now,  but 
which  the  ancient  Britons  did  not  use  in  making  their  own 
uncomfortable  houses.  I  should  not  wonder  if  the  Druids, 
and  their  pupils  who  stayed  with  them  twenty  years,  know- 
ing more  than  the  rest  of  the  Britons,  kept  the  people  out 
of  sight  while  they  made  these  buildings,  and  then  pre- 
tended that  they  built  them  by  magic.  Perhaps  they  had  a 
hand  in  the  fortresses  too;  at  all  events,  as  they  were  very 
powerful,  and  very  much  believed  in,  and  as  they  made  the 
laws,  and  paid  no  taxes,  I  don't  wonder  that  they  liked  their 
trade.  And,  as  they  persuaded  the  people  that  the  more 
Druids  there  were  the  better  off  the  people  would  be,  i 
don't  wonder  there  were  so  many  of  them.  But  it  is  pleas- 
ant  to  think  that  there  are  no  Druids  now^  who  go  on  in  that 
way  and  pretend  to  carry  enchanters'  wands  and  serpents' 
eggs,  and,  of  course,  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind  anywhere. 

Such  was  the  improved  condition  of  the  ancient  Britons 
fifty-five  years  before  the  birth  of  our  Savior,  when  the 
Romans,  under  their  great  general,  Julius  Caesar,  were 
masters  of  all  the  rest  of  the  known  world.  Julius  Caesar 
had  then  just  conquered  Gaul;  and  hearing,  in  Gaul,  a 
good  deal  about  the  opposite  island  with  the  white  cliffs, 
and  the  bravery  of  the  Britons  who  inhabited  it  (some  of 
whom  had  been  fetched  over  to  help  the  Gauls  in  the  war 
against  him),  he  resolved  to  next  conquer  Britain. 

So  Julius  Caesar  came  sailing  over  to  this  island  of  ours, 


ANCIENT  ENGLAND  AND  THE  ROMANS.  n 

•with  eighty  vessels  and  twelve  thousand  men.  And  he  came 
from  the  French  coast  between  Calais  and  Boulogne,  "  because 
thence  was  the  shortest  passage  into  Britain  ; "  just  for  the 
same  reason  as  our  steamboats  now  take  the  same  track  every 
day.  He  expected  to  conquer  Britain  easily.  But  it  was  not 
such  easy  work  as  he  supposed ;  for  the  bold  Britons  fought 
most  bravely.  And  what  with  not  having  his  horse-soldiers  with 
him  (for  they  had  been  driven  back  by  a  storm),  and  what  with 
having  some  of  his  vessels  dashed  to  pieces  by  a  high  tide  after 
they  were  drawn  ashore,  he  ran  great  risk  of  being  totally  de- 
feated. However,  for  once  that  the  bold  Britons  beat  him,  he 
beat  them  twice  ;  though  not  so  soundly  but  that  he  was  very 
glad  to  accept  their  proposals  of  peace,  and  go  away. 

But  in  the  spring  of  the  next  year,  he  came  back ;  this  time 
with  eight  hundred  vessels  and  thirty  thousand  men.  The 
British  tribes  chose,  as  their  general-in-chief,  a  Briton,  whom 
the  Romans  in  their  Latin  language  called  Cassivellaunus,  but 
whose  British  name  is  supposed  to  have  been  Caswallon.  A 
brave  general  he  was  ;  and  well  he  and  his  soldiers  fought  the 
Roman  army  !  So  well,  that,  whenever  in  that  war  the  Roman 
soldiers  saw  a  great  cloud  of  dust,  and  heard  the  rattle  of  the 
rapid  British  chariots,  they  trembled  in  their  hearts.  Besides 
a  number  of  smaller  battles,  there  was  a  battle  fought  near 
Canterbury,  in  Kent ;  there  was  a  battle  fought  near  Chertsey, 
in  Surrey;  there  was  a  battle  fought  near  a  marshy  little 
town  in  a  wood,  the  capital  of  that  part  of  Britain  which 
belonged  to  Cassivellaunus,  and  which  was  probably  near  what 
is  now  Saint  Albans,  in  Hertfordshire.  However,  brave  Cas- 
sivellaunus had  the  worst  of  it,  on  the  whole ;  though  he 
and  his  men  always  fought  like  lions.  As  the  other  British 
chiefs  were  jealous  of  him,  and  were  always  quarrelling  with 
him  and  with  one  another,  he  gave  up,  and  proposed  peace. 
Julius  Caesar  was  very  glad  to  grant  peace  easily,  and  to  go 
away  with  all  his  remaining  ships  and  men.  He  had  expect- 
ed to  find  pearls  in  Britain,  and  he  may  have  found  a  few  for 
anything  I  know  ;  but,  at  all  events,  he  found  delicious  oysters. 
And  I  am  sure  he  found  tough  Britons ;  of  whom,  I  dare  say, 
he  made  the  same  complaint  as  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  the  great 
French  general,  did,  eighteen  hundred  years  afterwards,  when 
he  said  they  were  such  unreasonable  fellows  that  they  never 
knew  when  they  were  beaten.  They  never  ^/V/ know,  I  believe, 
and  never  will. 

Nearly  a  hundred  years  passed  on  ;  and  all  that  time  there 
was  peace  in  Britain.     The  Britons  improved  their    towns  and 


,2  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

mode  of  life,  became  more  civilized,  travelled,  and  learned  a 
great  deal  from  the  Gauls  and  Romans.  At  last,  the  Roman 
Emperor  Claudius  sent  Aulus  Plautius,  a  skilful  general  with 
a  mighty  force,  to  subdue  the  island  ;  and  shortly  afterwards 
arrived  himself.  They  did  little ;  and  Ostorius  Scapula, 
another  general,  came.  Some  of  the  British  chiefs  of  tribes 
submitted.  Others  resolved  to  fight  to  the  death.  Of  these 
brave  men,  the  bravest  was  Caractacus,  or  Caradoc,  who  gave 
battle  to  the  Romans  with  his  army  among  the  mountains  of 
North  Wales.  "This  day,'*  said  he  to  his  soldiers,  "decides 
the  fate  of  Britain  !  Your  liberty,  or  your  eternal  slavery, 
dates  from  this  hour.  Remember  your  brave  ancestors,  who 
drove  the  great  Caesar  himself  across  the  sea."  On  hearing 
these  words,  his  men,  with  a  great  shout,  rushed  upon  the 
Romans.  But  the  strong  Roman  swords  and  armor  were  too 
much  for  the  weaker  British  weapons  in  close  conflict.  The 
Britons  lost  the  day.  The  wife  and  daughter  of  the  brave 
Caractacus  were  taken  prisoners  ;  his  brothers  delivered  them- 
selves up  ;  he  himself  was  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  the 
Romans  by  his  false  and  base  stepmother  ;  and  they  carried 
him,  and  all  his  family,  in  triumph  to  Rome. 

But  a  great  man  will  be  great  in  misfortune,  great  in  prison, 
great  in  chains.  His  noble  air  and  dignified  endurance  of  dis- 
tress so  touched  the  Roman  people,  who  thronged  the  streets 
to  see  him,  that  he  and  his  family  were  restored  to  freedom. 
No  one  knows  whether  his  great  heart  broke,  and  he  died  in 
Rome,  or  whether  he  ever  returned  to  his  own  dear  country. 
English  oaks  have  grown  up  from  acorns,  and  withered  away 
when  they  were  hundreds  of  years  old, — and  other  oaks  have 
sprung  up  in  their  places,  and  died  too,  very  aged, — since  the 
rest  of  the  history  of  the  brave  Caractacus  was  forgotten. 

Still  the  Britons  would  not  yield.  They  rose  again  and 
again,  and  died  by  thousands,  sword  in  hand.  Tney  rose  on 
every  possible  occasion.  Suetonius,  another  Roman  general, 
came  and  stormed  the  Island  of  Anglesey  (then  called  Mona) 
which  was  supposed  to  be  sacred  ;  and  he  burnt  the  Druids  in 
their  own  wicker-cages,  by  their  own  fires.  But  even  while  he 
was  in  Britain  with  his  victorious  troops,  the  Britons  rose. 
Because  Boadicea,  a  British  queen,  the  widow  of  the  king  of 
the^  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  people,  resisted  the  plundering  of  her 
property  by  the  Romans,  who  were  settled  in  England,  she 
was  scourged  by  order  of  Catus,  a  Roman  officer;  and  her 
two  daughters  were  shamefully  insulted  in  her  presence ;  and 
her   husband's  relations    were  made  slaves.     To  avenge  this 


ANCIENT  ENGLAND  AND  THE  ROMANS, 


13 


injury,  the  Britons  rose  with  all  their  might  and  rage.  They 
drove  Catus  into  Gaul  ;  they  laid  the  Roman  possessions  waste  ; 
they  forced  the  Romans  out  of  London  (then  a  poor  little 
town,  but  a  trading-place)  ;  they  hanged,  burnt,  crucified,  and 
slew  by  the  sword,  seventy  thousand  Romans  in  a  few  days. 
Suetonius  strengthened  his  army,  and  advanced  to  give  them 
battle.  They  strengthened  their  army,  and  desperately  at- 
tacked his  on  the  field  where  it  was  strongly  posted.  Before 
the  first  charge  of  the  Britons  was  made,  Boadicea,  in  a  war- 
chariot,  with  her  fair  hair  streaming  in  the  wind,  and  her  in- 
jured daughters  lying  at  her  feet,  drove  among  the  troops,  and 
cried  to  them  for  vengeance  on  their  oppressors,  the  licentious 
Romans.  The  Britons  fought  to  the  last  ;  but  they  were  van- 
quished with  great  slaughter,  and  the  unhappy  queen  took 
poison. 

Still,  the  spirit  of  the  Britons  was  not  broken.  When 
Suetonius  left  the  country,  they  fell  upon  his  troops,  and  retook 
the  Island  of  Anglesey.  Agricola  came  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
afterwards,  and  retook  it  once  more,  and  devoted  seven  years 
to  subduing  the  country,  especially  that  part  of  it  which  is  now 
called  Scotland ;  but  its  people,  the  Caledonians,  resisted  him 
at  every  inch  of  ground.  They  fought  the  bloodiest  battles  with 
him  j  they  killed  their  very  wives  and  children,  to  prevent  his 
making  prisoners  of  them  ;  then  fell,  fighting,  in  such  great 
numbers  that  certain  hills  in  Scotland  are  yet  supposed  to  be 
vast  heaps  of  stones  piled  up  above  their  graves.  Hadrian  came 
thirty  years  afterwards  ;  and  still  they  resisted  him.  Severus 
came  nearly  a  hundred  years,  afterwards  ;  and  they  worried  his 
great  army  like  dogs,  and  rejoiced  to  see  them  die,  by  thousands 
in  the  bogs,  and  swamps.  Caracalla,  the  son  and  successor  of 
Severus,  did  the  most  to  conquer  them,  for  a  time  ;  but  not  by 
force  of  arms.  He  knew  how  little  that  would  do.  He  yielded 
up  a  quantity  of  land  to  the  Caledonians,  and  gave  the  Britons 
the  same  privileges  as  the  Romans  possessed.  There  was 
peace  after  this  for  seventy  years. 

Then  new  enemies  arose.  They  were  the  Saxons,  a  fierce, 
seafaring  people  from  the  countries  to  the  north  of  the  Rhine, 
the  great  river  of  Germany,  on  the  banks  of  which  the  best 
grapes  grow  to  make  the  German  wine.  They  began  to  come 
in  pirate  ships,  to  the  sea-coast  of  Gaul  and  Britain,  and  to 
plunder  them.  They  were  repulsed  by  Carausius,  a  native 
either  of  Belgium  or  of  Britain,  who  was  appointed  by  the 
Romans  to  the  command,  and  under  whom  the  Britons  first 
began  to  fight  upon  the  sea.     But  after  this  time  they  renewed 


14 


A  CHILD S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


their  ravages.  A  few  years  more,  and  the  Scots  (which  was 
then  the  name  for  the  people  of  Ireland)  and  the  Picts,  a 
northern  people,  began  to  make  frequent  plundering  incursions 
into  the  South  of  Britain.  All  these  attacks  were  repeated,  at 
intervals,  during  two  hundred  years,  and  through  a  long  succes- 
sion of  Roman  emperors  and  chiefs  ;  during  all  which  length  of 
time  the  Britons  rose  against  the  Romans  over  and  over  again. 
At  last,  in  the  days  of  the  Roman  Honorius,  when  the  Roman 
power  all  over  the  world  was  fast  declining,  and  when  Rome 
wanted  all  her  soldiers  at  home,  the  Romans  abandoned  all 
hope  of  conquering  Britain,  and  went  away.  And  still,  at  last 
as  at  first,  the  Britons  rose  against  them  in  their  old,  brave 
manner ;  for,  a  very  little  while  before,  they  had  turned  away 
the  Roman  magistrates,  and  declared  themselves  an  indepen- 
dent people. 

Five  hundred  years  had  passed  since  Julius  Caesar's  first  in- 
vasion of  the  Island,  when  the  Romans  departed  from  it  forever. 
In  the  course  of  that  time,  although  they  had  been  the  cause  of 
terrible  fighting  and  bloodshed,  they  had  done  much  to  im- 
prove the  condition  of  the  Britons.  The  had  made  great 
military  roads  ;  they  had  built  forts  ;  they  had  taught  them  how 
to  dress  and  arm  themselves  much  better  than  they  had  ever 
known  how  to  do  before  \  they  had  refined  the  whole  British  way 
of  living.  Agricola  had  built  a  great  wall  of  earth,  more  than 
seventy  miles  long,  extending  from  Newcastle  to  beyond  Car- 
lisle, for  the  purpose  of  keeping  out  the  Picts  and  Scots  ;  Ha- 
drian had  strengthened  it ;  Severus  finding  it  much  in  want  of 
repair,  had  built  it  afresh  of  stone.  Above  all,  it  was  in  the 
Roman  time,  and  by  means  of  Roman  ships,  that  the  Christian 
religion  was  first  brought  into  Britain,  and  its  people  first  taught 
the  great  lesson,  that,  to  be  good  in  the  sight  of  God,  they 
must  love  their  neighbors  as  themselves,  and  do  upto  others  as 
they  would  be  done  by.  The  Druids  declared  that  it  was  very 
wicked  to  believe  in  any  such  thing,  and  cursed  all  the  people 
who  did  believe  it  very  heartily.  But  when  the  people  found 
that  they  were  none  the  better  for  the  blessings  of  the  Druids, 
and  none  the  worse  for  the  curses  of  the  Druids,  but  that  the 
sun  shone  and  the  rain  fell  without  consulting  the  Druids  ast  all, 
they  just  began  to  think  that  the  Druids  were  mere  men,  and 
that  it  signified  very  little  whether  they  cursed  or  blessed.  After 
which,  the  pupils  of  the  Druids  fell  off  greatly  in  numbers,  and 
the  Druids  took  to  other  trades. 

Thus  I  have  come  to  the  end  of  the  Roman  time  in  England. 
It  b  but  little  that  is  known  of  those  five  hundred  years  j  but 


ANCIENT  ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  EARLY  SAXONS,     i^ 

some  remains  of  them  are  still  found.  Often,  when  labor- 
ers are  digging  up  the  ground  to  make  foundations  for 
houses  or  churches,  they  light  on  rusty  money  that  once 
belonged  to  the  Romans.  Fragments  of  plates  from 
which  they  ate,  of  goblets  from  Vy^hich  they  drank,  and  of 
pavement  on  which  they  trod  are  discovered  among  the 
earth  that  is  broken  by  the  plough,  or  the  dust  that  is 
crumbled  by  the  gardener's  spade.  Wells  that  the  Romans 
sunk  still  yield  water;  roads  that  the  Romans  m.ade,  form 
part  of  our  highways.  In  some  old  battle-fields,  British 
spear-heads  and  Roman  armor  have  been  found,  mingled 
together  in  decay  as  they  fell  in  the  thick  pressure  of  the 
fight.  Traces  of  Roman  camps,  overgrown  with  grass, 
and  of  mounds  that  are  the  burial  places  of  heaps  of 
Britons,  are  to  be  seen  in 'almost  all  parts  of  the  country. 
Across  the  bleak  moors  of  Northumberland,  the  wall  of 
Severus,  overrun  with  moss  and  weeds,  still  stretches,  a 
strong  ruin;  and  the  shepherds  and  their  dogs  lie  sleeping 
on  it  in  the  summer  weather.  On  Salisbury  Plain,  Stone- 
henge  yet  stands, — a  monument  of  the  earlier  time  when 
the  Roman  name  was  unknown  in  Britain,  and  when  the 
Druids  with  their  best  magic-wands,  could  not  have 
written  it  in  the  sands  of  the  wild  sea-shore. 


CHAPTER  II. 

ANCIENT   ENGLAND   UNDER   THE  EARLY  SAXONS. 

The  Romans  had  scarcely  gone  away  from  Britain 
when  the  Britons  began  to  wish  they  had  nev^er  left  it. 
For  the  Roman  soldiers  being  gone,  and  the  Britons  being 
reduced  in  numbers  by  their  long  wars,  the  Picts  and  Scots 
came  pouring  in  over  the  broken  and  unguarded  wall  of 
Severus.  They  plundered  the  richest  towns,  and  killed 
the  people;  and  came  back  so  often  for  more  booty  and 
more  slaughter,  that  the  Britons  lived  a  life  of  terror. 
The  Saxons  attacked  the  islanders  by  sea;  and,  as  if  some- 
thing more  were  wanting  to  make  them  miserable,  they 
quarrelled  bitterly  among  themselves  as  to  what  prayers 
they  ought  to  say,  and  how  they  ought  to  say  them. 
The  priests,  being  angry  with  one  another  on  these 
questions,  cursed  one  another  in  the   heartiest  manner. 


l6  A  CHILD'S  HISTOR\  OF  ENGLAND, 

and  (uncommonly  like  the  old  Druids)  cursed  all  the  people 
whom  they  could  not  persuade.  So  altogether  the  Britons  were 
very  badly  otf,  you  may  believe. 

They  were  in  such  distress,  in  short,  that  they  sent  a  letter 
to  Rome,  entreating  help  (which  they  called  the  groans  of  the 
Britons),  and  in  which  they  said,  "The  barbarians  chase  us 
into  the  sea;  the  sea  throws  us  back  upon  the  barbarians;  and 
we  have  only  the  hard  choice  left  us  of  perishing  by  the  sword, 
or  perishing  by  the  waves. "  But  the  Romans  could  not  help 
them,  even  if  they  were  so  inclined ;  for  they  had  enough  to  do 
to  defend  themselves  against  their  own  enemies,  who  were  then 
very  fierce  and  strong.  At  last  the  Britons,  unable  to  bear  their 
hard  condition  any  longer,  resol/ed  to  make  peace  with  the 
Saxons,  and  to  invite  the  Saxons  to  come  into  their  country  and 
help  them  to  keep  out  the  Picts  and  Scots. 

It  was  a  British  prince  named  Vortigern  who  took  this  res- 
olution, and  who  made  a  treaty  of  friendship  with  Hengist  and 
Horsa,  two  Saxon  chiefs.  Both  of  these  names,  in  the  old 
Saxon  language,  signify  horse;  for  the  Saxons,  like  many  other 
nations  in  a  rough  state  were  fond  of  giving  men  the  names  of 
animals,  as  horse,  wolf,  bear,  hound.  The  Indians  of  North 
America — a  very  inferior  people  to  the  Saxons,  though — do  the 
same  to  this  day. 

Hengist  and  Horsa  drove  out  the  Picts  and  Scots;  and 
Vortigern,  being  grateful  to  them  for  that  service,  made  no  op- 
position to  their  settling  themselves  in  that  part  of  England 
which  is  called  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  or  to  their  inviting  over 
more  of  their  countrymen  to  join  them.  But  Hengist  had  a 
beautiful  daughter  named  Rowena;  and  when  at  a  feast  she 
filled  a  golden  goblet  to  the  brim  with  wine,  and  gave  it  to 
Vortigern,  saying  in  a  sweet  voice,  "  Dear  king  thy  health !" 
the  king  fell  in  love  with  her.  My  opinion  is,  that  the  cunning 
Hengist  meant  him  to  do  so,  in  order  that  the  Saxons  might 
have  greater  influence  with  him ;  and  that  the  fair  Rowena 
came  to  that  feast,  golden  goblet  and  all,  on  purpose. 

At  any  rate  they  were  married;  and  long  afterwards,  when- 
ever the  king  was  angry  with  the  Saxons,  or  jealous  of  their 
enroachments,  Rowena  would  put  her  beautiful  arms  round 
his  neck,  and  sottly  say,  "Dear  king,  they  are  my  people!  Be 
favorable  to  them,  as  you  loved  that  Saxon  girl  who  gave  you 
the  golden  goblet  of  wine  at  the  feast !"  And  really  I  don't  see 
how  the  king  could  help  himself. 

Ah?  We  must  all  die!  In  the  course  of  years,  Vortigern 
died  (he  was  dethroned,  and  put  in  prison  first,  I   am   afraid); 


ANCIENT  ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  EARLY  SAXONS.        17 

and  Rowena  died  ;  and  generations  of  Saxons  and  Britons 
died  :  and  events  that  happened  during  a  long,  long  time, 
would  have  been  quite  forgotten  but  for  the  tales  and  songs  of 
the  old  bards,  who  used  to  go  about  from  feast  to  feast,  with 
their  white  beards,  recounting  the  deeds  of  their  forefathers. 
Among  the  histories  of  which  they  sang  and  talked,  there  was 
a  famous  one  concerning  the  bravery  and  virtues  of  King 
Arthur,  supposed  to  have  been  a  British  prince  in  those  old 
rimes.  But  whether  such  a  person  really  lived,  or  whether  there 
were  several  persons  whose  histories  came  to  be  confused  to- 
gether under  that  one  name,  or  whether  all  about  him  was  in- 
vention, no  one  knows. 

I  will  tell  you  shortly  what  is  most  interesting  in  the  eany 
Saxon  times,  as  they  are  described  in  these  songs  and  stories 
of  the  bards. 

In  and  long  after  the  days  of  Vortigern,  fresh  bodies  of 
Saxons,  under  various  chiefs,  came  pouring  into  Britain. 
One  body,  conquering  the  Britons  in  the  East  and  settling 
there,  called  their  kingdom  Essex  ;  another  body  settled  in  the 
West,  and  called  their  kingdom  Wessex ;  the  Northfolk,  or 
Norfolk  people,  established  themselves  in  one  place ;  the 
Southfolk,  or  Suffolk  people,  established  themselves  in  another ; 
and  gradually  seven  kingdoms,  or  states,  arose  in  England, 
which  were  called  the  Saxon  Heptarchy.  The  poor  Britons, 
falling  back  before  these  crowds  of  fighting  men  whom  they  had 
innocently  invited  over  as  friends,  retired  into  Wales  and  the 
adjacent  country,  into  Devonshire  and  into  Cornwall.  Those 
parts  of  England  long  remained  unconquered.  And  in  Corn- 
wall now, — where  the  sea-coast  is  very  gloomy,  steep,  and 
rugged  ;  where,  ir;  the  dark  winter-time,  ships  have  often  been 
wrecked  close  to  the  land,  and  every  soul  on  board  has  per- 
ished j  where  the  winds  and  waves  howl  drearily,  and  split  the 
solid  rocks  into  arches  and  caverns, — there  are  very  ancient 
ruins,  which  the  people  call  the  ruins  of  King  Arthur's  Castle. 

Kent  is  the  most  famous  of  the  seven  Saxon  kingdoms,  be- 
cause the  Christian  religion  was  preached  to  the  Saxons  there 
(who  domineered  ovr.r  the  Britons  too  much  to  care  for  what 
they  said  about  th?  religion,  or  anything  else)  by  Augustine,  a 
monk  from  Rom;.  King  Ethelbert  of  Kent  was  soon  con- 
verted ;  and  :he  moment  he  said  he  was  a  Christian  his 
courtiers  all  said  they  were  Christians ;  after  which,  ten  thou- 
sand of  his  sub;  .ccs  said  they  were  Christians  too.  Augustine 
built  a  little  ci  ■•:h  close  to  this  king's  palace,  on  the  ground 
now  occupied  ";  ,  .^e  beai  tiful  cathedral  of  Canterbury.     Sebert, 


,g  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAN3. 

the  king's  nephew,  built  on  a  muddy,  manliy  place  near  Lon- 
don, where  there  had  been  a  temple  to  Apollo,  a  church  dedi* 
catcd  to  Saint  Peter,  which  is  now  Westminster  Abbey.  And 
in  London  itself,  on  the  foundation  of  a  temple  to  Diana,  he 
built  another  little  church  which  has  risen  up  since  that  old 
time  to  be  Saint  Paul's. 

After  the  death  of  Ethelbert,  Edwin,  King  of  Northumbrin, 
who  was  such  a  good  king  that  it  was  said  a  woman  or  child 
might  openly  carry  a  purse  of  gold  in  his  reign  without  fear, 
allowed  his  child  to  be  baptized,  and  held  a  great  council  lo 
consider  whether  he  and  his  people  should  all  be  Christians  or 
not.  It  was  decided  that  they  should  be.  Coifi,  the  chief 
priest  of  the  old  religion,  made  a  great  speech  on  the  occasion. 
In  this  discourse,  he  told  the  people  that  he  had  found  out  ti;e 
old  gods  to  be  impostors.  "  I  am  quite  satisfied  of  it,"  he  said. 
"  Look  at  mc  !  I  have  been  serving  them  all  my  life,  and  they 
have  done  nothing  for  me  ;  whereas,  if  they  had  been  really 
powerful,  they  could  not  have  decently  done  less,  in  return  for 
all  I  have  done  for  them,  than  make  my  fortune.  As  they  have 
never  made  my  fortune,  I  am  quite  convinced  they  are  im- 
postors." When  this  singular  priest  had  finished  speaking,  he 
hastily  armed  himself  with  sword  and  lance,  mounted  a  war- 
horse,  rode  at  a  furious  gallop  in  sight  of  all  the  people  to  the 
temple,  and  flung  his  lance  against  it  as  an  insult.  From  that 
time  the  Christian  religion  spread  itself  among  the  Saxons,  and 
became  their  faith. 

The  next  very  famous  prince  was  Egbert.  He  lived  about 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years  afterwards,  and  claimed  to  have  a 
better  right  to  the  throne  of  Wessex  than  Beortric,  another 
Saxon  prince  who  was  at  the  head  of  that  kingdom,  and  who 
married  Edburga,  the  daughter  of  Offa,  king  of  another  of  the 
seven  kingdoms.  This  Queen  Edburga  was  a  handsome 
murderess,  who  poisoned  people  when  they  offended  her.  One 
day  she  mixed  a  cup  of  poison  for  a  certain  noble  belonging  to 
the  court;  but  her  husband  drank  of  it  too,  by  mistake,  and 
died.  Upon  this,  the  people  revolted  in  great  crowds  ;  and 
running  to  the  palace,  and  thundering  at  the  gates,  cried, 
"  Down  with  the  wicked  queen  who  poisons  men  t  "  They 
drove  her  out  of  the  country,  and  abolished  the  title  she  had 
disgraced.  When  years  had  passed  away,  some  travellers  came 
home  from  Italy,  and  said  that  in  the  town  of  Pavia  they  had 
seen  a  ragged  beggar-woman — who  had  once  been  handsome, 
but  was  then  shrivelled,  bent,  and  yellow — wandering  about  the 
Streets,  crying  for  bread ;  and  that  this  beggar-woman  was  the 


El/GLAND  UNDER  THE  GOOD  SAXON,  ALFRED.         19 

poisoning    English  queen.     It  was,  indeed,  Edburga  ;  and  so 
she  died,  without  a  shelter  for  her  wretched  head. 

Egbert,  not  considering  himself  safe  in  England,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  having  claimed  the  crown  of  Wessex  (for  he 
thought  his  rival  might  take  him  prisoner  and  put  him  to  death) 
sought  refuge  at  the  court  of  Charlemagne,  King  of  France. 
On  the  death  of  Beortric,  so  unhappily  poisoned  by  mistake, 
E:;bert  came  back  to  Britain,  succeeded  to  the  throne  of 
Wessex,  conquered  some  of  the  other  monarchs  of  the  seven 
kingdoms,  added  their  territories  to  his  own,  and,  for  the  first 
time,  called  the  country  over  which  he  ruled  England. 

And  now  new  enemies  arose,  who  for  a  long  time,  troubled 
England  sorely.  These  were  the  Northmen, — the  people  of 
Denmark  and  Norway ;  whom  the  English  called  the  Danes. 
They  were  a  warlike  people,  quite  at  home  upon  the  sea  ;  not 
Christians  ;  very  daring  and  cruel.  They  came  over  in  ships, 
and  plundered  and  burned  wheresoever  they  landed.  Once 
they  beat  Egbert  in  battle.  Once  Egbert  beat  them.  But  they 
cared  no  more  for  being  beaten  than  the  English  themselves. 
In  the  four  following  short  reigns,  of  Ethelwulf  and  his  sons 
Ethelbald,  Ethelbert,  and  Ethelred,  they  came  back  again,  over 
and  over  again,  burning  and  plundering,  and  laying  England 
waste.  In  the  last  mentioned  reign,  they  seized  Edmund,  king 
of  East  England,  and  bound  him  to  a  tree.  Then  they  proposed 
to  him  that  he  should  change  his  religion  ;  but  he,  being  a  good 
Christian,  steadily  refused.  Upon  that  they  beat  him  ;  made 
cowardly  jests  upon  him,  all  defenceless  as  he  was  ;  shot  arrows 
at  him  ;  and  finally  struck  off  his  head.  It  is  impossible  to  say 
whose  head  they  might  have  struck  off  next,  but  for  the  death 
of  King  Ethelred  from  a  wound  he  had  received  in  fighting 
against  them,  and  the  succession  to  his  throne  of  the  best  and 
wisest  king  that  ever  lived  in  England 


CHAPTER  III. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   THE   GOOD   SAXON,    ALFRED. 

Alfred  the  Great  was  a  young  man  three-and-twenty  years 
of  age  when  he  became  king.  Twice  in' his  childhood  he  had 
been  taken  to  Rome,  where  the  Saxon  nobles  were  in  the  habit 


20 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


of  going  on  journeys  which  they  supposed  to  be  religious  ;  and 
once  he  had  stayed  for  some  time  in  Paris.  Learning,  however, 
was  so  little  cared  for  then,  that  at  twelve  years  old  he  had  not 
been  taught  to  read  ;  although,  of  the  sons  of  King  Ethelwult, 
he,  the  youngest,  was  the  favorite.  But  he  had — as  most  men 
who  grow  up  to  be  great  and  good  are  generally  found  to  have 
had — an  excellent  mother :  and  one  day  this  lady,  whose  name 
was  Osburga,  happened,  as  she  was  sitting  among  her  sons,  to 
read  a  book  of  Saxon  poetry.  The  art  of  printing  was  not  known 
until  long  and  long  after  that  period ;  and  the  book,  which  was 
written,  was  what  is  called  "  illuminated  "  with  beautiful  bright 
letters,  richly  painted.  The  brothers  admiring  it  very  much, 
their  mother  said,  "  I  will  give  it  to  that  one  of  you  four  princes 
who  first  learns  to  read."  Alfred  sought  out  a  tutor  that  very 
day,  applied  himself  to  learn  with  great  diligence,  and  soon  won 
the  book.     He  was  proud  of  it  all  his  life. 

This  great  king,  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  fought  nine 
battles  with  the  Danes.  He  made  some  treaties  with  them  too, 
by  which  the  false  Danes  swore  that  they  would  quit  the  country. 
They  pretended  to  consider  that  they  had  taken  a  very  solemn 
oath,  in  swearing  this  upon  the  holy  bracelets  that  they  wore, 
and  which  were  always  buried  with  them,  when  they  died.  But 
they  cared  little  for  it ;  for  they  thought  nothing  of  breaking 
oaths,  and  treaties  too,  as  soon  as  it  suited  their  purpose,  and 
coming  back  again  to  fight,  plunder,  and  burn,  as  usual.  One 
fatal  winter,  in  the  fourth  year  of  King  Alfred's  reign,  they 
spread  themselves  in  great  numbers  over  the  whole  of  England  ; 
and  so  dispersed  and  routed  the  king's  soldiers,  that  the  king 
was  left  alone,  and  was  obliged  to  disguise  himself  as  a  common 
peasant,  and  to  take  refuge  in  the  cottage  of  one  of  his  cow- 
herds, who  did  not  know  his  face. 

Here  King  Alfred,  while  the  Danes  sought  him  far  and  near, 
was  left  alone  one  day  by  the  cowherd's  wife,  to  watch  some 
cakes  which  she  put  to  bake  upon  the  hearth.  But  being  ai 
work  upon  his  bow  and  arrows,  with  which  he  hoped  to  punish 
the  false  Danes  when  a  brighter  time  should  come,  and  thinking 
deeply  of  his  poor  unhappy  subjects,  whom  the  Danes  chased 
througii  liie  land,  his  noble  mind  forgot  the  cakes ;  and  they 
were  burnt.  *'  What !  "  said  the  cowherd's  wife,  who  scolded 
him  well  when  she  came  back,  and  little  thought  she  was  scold- 
ing the  king,  "  You  will  be  ready  enough  to  eat  them  by  and 
by ;  and  yet  you  cannot  Vvatch  them,  idle  dog  !  " 

At  length  the  Devonshire  men  made  head  against  a  new  host 
of  Danes  who  landed  on  their  coast;  killed  their  cnief,  and 


ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  GOOD  SAXON  ALFRED.  gi 

captured  their  flag  (on  which  was  represented  the  likeness  of  a 
raven, — a  very  fit  bird  foi  a  thievish  army  like  that,  I  think). 
The  loss  of  their  standard  troubled  the  Danes  greatly  ;  for  they 
believed  it  to  be  enchanted, — woven  by  the  three  daughters  of 
one  father  in  a  single  afternoon.  And  they  had  a  story  among 
themselves,  that  when  they  were  victorious  in  battle,  the  raven 
stretched  his  wings,  and  seemed  to  fly;  and  that  when  they  were 
defeated,  he  would  droop.  He  had  good  reason  to  droop  now, 
if  he  could  have  done  anything  half  so  sensible  ;  for  King  Alfred 
joined  the  Devonshire  men,  made  a  camp  with  them  on  a  piece 
of  firm  ground  in  the  midst  of  a  bog  in  Somersetshire,  and  pre- 
pared for  a  great  attempt  for  vengeance  on  the  Danes,  and  the 
deliverance  of  his  oppressed  people. 

But  first,  as  it  was  important  to  know  how  numerous  those 
pestilent  Danes  were,  and  how  they  were  fortified,  King  Alfred, 
being  a  good  musician,  disguised  himself  as  a  glee-man  or  min- 
strel, and  went  with  his  harp  to  the  Danish  camp.  He  played 
and  sang  in  the  very  tent  of  Guthrum  the  Danish  leader,  and 
entertained  the  Danes  as  they  caroused.  While  he  seen-ed  to 
think  of  nothing  but  his  music,  he  was  watchful  of  li.eir  "ji.ts, 
iheir  arms,  their  discipline, — ever}^thing  that  he  desired  to  ki,ow. 
And  right  soon  did  this  great  king  entertain  them  to  a  difTerent 
[une  ;  for,  summoning  all  his  true  followers  to  meet  him  at  an 
appointed  place,  where  they  received  him  with  joyful  shouts  and 
tears  as  the  monarch  whom  many  of  them  had  given  up  for  lost 
or  dead,  he  put  himself  at  their  head,  marched  on  the  Danish 
camp,  defeated  the  Danes  with  great  slaughter,  and  besieged 
:hem  for  fourteen  days  to  prevent  their  escape.  But,  being  as 
mercifu]  as  he  was  good  and  brave,  he  then,  instead  of  killing 
ihem,  proposed  peace, — on  condition  that  they  should  altogether 
depart  from  that  western  part  of  England,  and  settle  in  the  East ; 
and  that  Guthrum  should  become  a  Christian,  in  remembrance 
of  the  divine  religion  which  now  taught  his  conqueror,  the  noble 
\lfred,  to  forgive  the  enemy  who  had  so  often  injured  him. 
This  Guthrum  did.  At  his  baptism.  King  Alfred  was  his  god- 
.ather.  And  Guthrum  was  an  honorable  chief,  who  well  deserved 
that  clemency  ;  for  ever  afterwards  he  was  loyal  and  faithful  to 
the  king.  The  Danes  under  him  were  faithful  too.  They 
plundered  and  burned  no  more,  but  worked  like  honest  men. 
They  ploughed  and  sowed  and  reaped,  and  led  good,  honest 
English  lives.  And  I  hope  the  children  of  those  Danes  played 
many  a  time  with  Saxon  children  in  the  sunny  fields  ;  and  that 
Danish  young  men  fell  in  love  with  Saxon  girls,  and  married 
them  ;  and  that  English  travellers,  benighted  at  the   doors  of 


f2  A   CHILD'S  IIISrORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Danish  cottages,  often  went  in  for  shelter  until  morning  ;  and 
that  Danes  and  Saxons  sat  by  the  red  fire,  friends,  talking  of 
King  Alfred  the  Great. 

All  the  Danes  were  not  like  these  under  Guthrum  ;  for,  after 
some  years,  more  of  them  came  over  in  the  old  plundering  and 
burning  way, — among  them  a  fierce  pirate  of  the  name  of  Hast- 
ings, who  had  the  boldness  to  sail  up  the  Thames  to  Gravesend 
with  eighty  ships.  For  three  years  there  was  a  war  with  these 
Danes  ;  and  there  was  a  famine  in  the  country,  too,  and  a  plague, 
both  upon  human  creatures  and  beasts.  But  King  Alfred,  whose 
mighty  heart  never  failed  him,  built  large  ships,  nevertheless, 
with  which  to  pursue  the  pirates  on  the  sea  ;  and  he  encouraged 
his  soldiers,  by  his  brave  example,  to  fight  valiantly  against  them 
on  the  shore.  At  last  he  drove  them  all  away  ;  and  then  there 
was  repose  in  England. 

As  great  and  good  in  peace  as  he  was  great  and  good  in 
w^ar,  King  Alfred  never  rested  from  his  labors  to  improve  his 
people.  He  loved  to  talk  with  clever  men,  and  with  travellers 
from  foreign  countries,  and  to  write  down  what  they  told  him, 
for  his  people  to  read.  He  had  studied  Latin  after  learning  to 
read  English ;  and  now  another  of  his  labors  was,  to  translate 
Latin  books  into  the  English-Saxon  tongue,  that  his  people  might 
be  interested  and  improved  by  their  contents.  He  made  just 
laws,  that  they  might  live  more  happily  and  freely ;  he  turned 
away  all  partial  judges,  that  no  wrong  might  be  done  them  ; 
he  was  so  careful  of  their  property,  and  punished  robbers  so 
severely,  that  it  was  a  common  thing  to  say,  that,  under  the 
great  King  Alfred,  garlands  of  golden  chains  and  jewels  might 
have  hung  across  the  streets,  and  no  man  would  have  touched 
one.  He  founded  schools ;  he  patiently  heard  causes  himself 
in  his  court  of  justice.  The  great  desires  of  his  heart  were,  to 
do  right  to  all  his  subjects,  and  to  leave  England  better,  wiser, 
happier  in  all  ways,  than  ho  found  it.  His  industry  in  these 
efforts  was  quiet  astonishing.  Every  day  he  divided  into 
certain  portions,  and  in  each  portion  devoted  himself  to  a 
certain  pursuit.  That  he  might  divide  his  time  exactly,  he  had 
wax-torches  or  candles  made,  which  were  all  of  the  same  size, 
were  notched  across  at  regular  distances,  and  were  always  kept 
burning.  Thus,  as  the  candles  burnt  down,  he  divided  the  day 
into  notches,  almost  as  accurately  as  we  now  divide  it  into 
hours  upon  the  clock.  But  when  the  candles  were  first  in- 
vented, it  was  found  that  the  wind  and  draughts  of  air,  blowing 
into  the  palace  through  the  doors  and  windows,  and  through 
the  chinks  in  the  walls,  caused  them  to  gutter  and  burn  un- 


ENGLAI^D  UNDER  THE  GOOD  SAXON,  ALFRED.  23' 

equally.  To  prevent  this,  the  king  had  them  put  into  cases 
formed  of  wood  and  white  horn.  And  these  were  the  first 
lanterns  ever  made  in  England. 

All  this  time  he  was  afflicted  with  a  terrible,  unknown  dis- 
ease ;  which  caused  him  violent  and  frequent  pain  that  nothing 
could  relieve.  He  bore  it,  as  he  had  borne  all  the  troubles  of 
his  life  like  a  brave  good  man,  until  he  was  fifty-three  years 
old ;  and  then,  having  reigned  thirty  years,  he  died.  He  died 
in  the  year  901  ;  but,  long  ago  as  that  is,  his  fame  and  the 
love  and  gratitude  with  which  his  subjects  regarded  him,  are 
freshly  remembered  to  the  present  hour. 

In  the  next  reign,  which  was  the  reign  of  Edward,  surnamed 
the  Elder,  who  was  chosen  in  council  to  succeed,  a  nephew  of 
King  Alfred  troubled  the  country  by  trying  to  obtain  the 
throne.  The  Danes  in  the  east  of  England  took  part  with 
this  usurjDer  (perhaps  because  they  had  honored  his  uncle  so 
much,  and  honored  him  for  his  uncle's  sake),  and  there  was 
hard  fighting ;  but  the  king,  with  the  assistance  of  his  sister, 
gained  the  day,  and  reigned  in  peace  for  four-and-twenty  years. 
He  gradually  extended  his  power  over  the  whole  of  England ; 
and  so  the  seven  kingdoms  were  united  into  one. 

When  England  thus  became  one  kingdom,  ruled  over  by 
one  Saxon  kirrg,  the  Saxons  had  been  settled  in  the  country 
more  than  four  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Great  changes  had 
taken  place  in  its  customs  during  that  time.  The  Saxons  were 
still  greedy  eaters  and  great  drinkers,  and  their  feasts  were 
often  of  a  noisy  and  drunken  kind  ;  but  many  new  comforts, 
and  even  elegancies,  had  become  known,  and  were  fast  increas- 
ing. Hangings  for  the  walls  of  rooms  (where,  fn  these  modern 
days,  we  paste  up  paper)  are  known  to  have  been  sometimes 
made  of  silk,  ornamented  with  birds  and  flowers  in  needlework. 
Tables  and  chairs  were  curiously  carved  in  different  woods  ; 
were  somf.lin'  s  decorated  with  gold  or  silver;  sometimes  even 
made  of  those  precious  metals.  Knives  and  spoons  were  used 
at  table  \  golden  ornaments  were  worn, — with  silk  and  cloth 
and  golden  tissues  and  embroideries ;  dishes  were  made  of 
gold  and  silver,  brass  and  bone.  There  were  varieties  of 
drinking-horns,  bedsteads,  musical  instruments.  A  harp  was 
passed  round  at  a  feast,  like  the  drinking-bowl,  from  guest  to 
guest ;  and  each  one  usually  sang  or  played  when  his  turn 
came.  The  weapons  of  the  Saxons  were  stoutly  made ;  and 
among  them  was  a  terrible  iron  hammer  that  gave  deadly 
blows,  and  was  long  remembered.  The  Saxons  themselves 
irere  a  handsome  i^^ople.     The  men  were  proud  of  their  long, 


24  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

fair  hair,  parted  on  the  forehead ;  their  ample  beards ;  their 
fresh  complexions  and  clear  eyes.  The  beauty  of  the  Saxon 
women  filled  all  England  with  a  new  delight  and  grace. 

I  have  more  to  tell  of  the  Saxons  yet  ;  but  I  stop  to  say 
this  now,  because,  under  the  great  Alfred,  all  the  best  points 
of  the  English-Saxon  character  were  first  encouraged,  and  in 
him  first  shown.  It  has  been  the  greatest  character  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  Wherever  the  descendants  of  the 
Saxon  race  have  gone,  have  sailed,  or  otherwise  made  their 
way,  even  to  the  remotest  regions  of  the  world,  they  have  been 
patient,  persevering,  never  to  be  broken  in  spirit,  never  to  be 
turned  aside  from  enterprises  on  which  they  have  resolved. 
In  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  America,  the  whole  world  over  ;  in 
the  desert,  in  the  forest,  on  the  sea ;  scorched  by  a  burning 
sun,  or  frozen  by  ice  that  never  melts, — the  Saxon  blood  re- 
mains unchanged.  Wheresoever  that  race  goes,  there  law  and 
industry,  and  safety  for  life  and  property,  and  all  the  great 
results  of  steady  perseverance,  are  certain  to  arise. 

I  pause  to  think  with  admiration  of  the  noble  king,  who,  in 
his  single  person,  possessed  all  the  Saxon  virtues ;  whom  mis- 
fortune could  not  subdue,  whom  prosperity  could  not  spoil, 
whose  perseverance  nothing  could  shake  ;  who  was  hopeful  in 
defeat,  and  generous  in  success ;  who  loved  justice,  freedom, 
truth  and  knowledge  ;  who,  in  his  care  to  instruct  his  people, 
probably  did  more  to  preserve  the  beautiful  old  Saxon  language 
than  I  can  imagine ;  without  whom  the  English  tongue  in 
which  I  tell  this  story  might  have  wanted  half  its  meaning. 
As  it  is  said  that  his  spirit  still  inspires  some  of  our  best 
English  laws,  so  let  you  and  I  pray  that  it  may  animate  our 
English  hearts,  at  least  to  this, — to  resolve,  when  we  see  any 
of  our  fellow-creatures  left  in  ignorance,  that  we  will  do  our 
best,  while  life  is  in  us,  to  have  them  taught ;  and  to  tell  those 
rulers  whose  duty  it  is  to  teach  them,  and  who  neglect  their 
duty,  that  they  have  profited  very  little  by  all  the  years  that 
have  rolled  away  since  the  year  901,  and  that  they  are  far  be- 
hind the  bright  example  of  King  Alfred  the  Great. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ATHELSTAN.  2$ 

CHAPTER   IV. 

ENGLAND  l/NDER  ATHELSTAN  AND  THE  SIX  BOY-KIN:^. 

Athelstan,  the  son  of  Edward  the  Elder,  succeeded  that 
king.  He  reigned  only  fifteen  years  ;  but  he  remembered  the 
glory  of  his  grandfather,  the  great  Alfred,  and  governed  Eng- 
land well.  He  reduced  the  turbulent  people  of  Wales,  and 
obliged  them  to  pay  him  a  tribute  in  money  and  in  cattle,  and 
to  send  him  their  best  hawks  and  hounds.  He  was  victorious 
over  the  Cornish  men,  who  were  not  yet  quite  under  the  Saxon 
government.  He  restored  such  of  the  old  laws  as  were  good 
and  had  fallen  into  disuse  ;  made  some  wise  new  laws  and  took 
care  of  the  poor  and  weak.  A  strong  alliance,  made  against 
him  by  Adlaf,  a  Danish  prince,  Constantine  King  of  the  Scots, 
and  the  people  of  North  Wales,  he  broke-  and  defeated  in  one 
great  battle,  long  famous  for  the  vast  numbers  slain  in  it. 
After  that  he  had  a  quiet  reign  ;  the  lords  and  ladies  about 
him  had  leisure  to  become  polite  and  agreeable ;  and  foreign 
princes  were  glad  (as  they  have  sometimes  been  since)  to  come 
to  England  on  visits  to  the  English  court. 

When  Athelstan  died,  at  forty-seven  years  old,  his  brother 
Edmund,  who  was  only  eighteen,  became  king.  He  was  the 
first  of  six  boy-kings,  as  you  will  presently  know. 

They  called  him  the  Magnificent,  because  he  showed  a  taste 
for  improvement  and  refinement.  But  he  was  beset  by  the 
Danes,  and  had  a  short  and  troubled  reign,  which  came  to  a 
troubled  end.  One  night,  when  he  was  feasting  in  his  hall,  and 
had  eaten  much  and  drunk  deep,  he  saw  among  the  company  a 
noted  robber  named  Leof,  who  had  been  banished  from  Eng- 
land. Made  very  angry  by  the  boldness  of  this  man,  the  kin,; 
turned  to  his  cup  bearer,  and  said  :  "  There  is  a  robber  sitiirr.; 
at  the  table  yonder,  who,  for  his  crimes,  is  an  outlaw  in  the  land, 
— a  hunted  wolf,  whose  life  any  man  may  take,  at  any  time. 
Command  that  robber  to  depart  .-• "  I  will  not  depart  !  "  said 
Leof.  "  No  ?  "  cried  the  king.  "  No,  by  the  Lord  !  "  said  Leof. 
Upon  that  the  king  rose  from  his  seat,  and,  making  passionately 
at  the  robber,  and  seizing  him  by  his  long  hair,  tried  to  throw 
him  down.  But  the  robber  had  a  dagger  underneath  his 
cloak,  and  in  the  scuffle  stabbed  the  king  to  death.  That  done, 
he  set  his  back  against  the  wall,  and  fought  so  desperately,  that. 


26  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

although  he  was  soon  cut  to  pieces  by  the  king's  armed  men, 

and  the  wall  and  pavement  were  splashed  with  his  blood,  yet 
it  was  not  before  he  had  killed  and  wounded  many  of  them. 
You  may  imagine  what  rough  lives  the  kings  of  those  times  led, 
when  one  of  them  could  struggle,  half  drunk,  with  a  public 
robber  in  his  own  dining-hall,  and  be  stabbed  in  presence  of 
the  company  who  ate  and  drank  with  him. 

Then  succeeded  the  boy-king  Edred,  who  was  weak  and 
sickly  in  body,  but  of  a  strong  mind.  And  his  armies  fought 
the  Northmen, — the  Danes  and  Norwegians,  or  the  Sea-kings, 
as  they  were  called, — and  beat  them  for  the  time.  And  in 
nine  years  Edred  died,  and  passed  away. 

Then  came  the  boy-king  Edwy,  fifteen  years  of  age  ;  but 
the  real  king,  who  had  the  real  power,  was  a  monk  named 
Dunstan, — a  clever  priest,  a  little  mad,  and  not  a  little  proud 
and  cruel. 

Dunstan  was  then  Abbot  of  Glastonbury  Abbey,  whither 
the  body  of  king  Edmund  the  Magnificent  was  carried  to  be 
buried.  While  yet  a  bo}',  he  had  got  out  of  his  bed  one  night 
(being  then  in  a  fever),  and  walked  about  Glastonbury  Church 
when  it  was  under  repair ;  and  because  he  did  not  tumble  off 
some  scaffolds  that  were  there,  and  break  his  neck,  it  was  re- 
ported that  he  had  been  shown  over  the  building  by  an  angel. 
He  had  also  made  a  harp  that  was  said  to  play  of  itself;  which 
it  very  likely  did,  as  ^olian  harps,  which  are  played  by  the 
wind,  and  are  understood  now,  always  do.  For  these  wonders  he 
had  been  once  denounced  by  his  enemies,  who  were  jealous  of 
his  favor  with  the  late  King  Athelstan,  as  a  magician  ;  and  he 
had  been  waylaid,  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  thrown  into  a 
marsh.  But  he  got  out  again,  somehow,  to  cause  a  great  deal 
of  trouble  yet. 

The  priests  of  those  days  were  generally  the  only  scholars. 
They  were  learned  in  many  things.  Having  to  make  their  own 
convents  and  monasteries  on  uncultivated  grounds  that  were 
granted  to  them  by  the  crown,  it  was  necessary  that  they  should 
be  good  farmers  and  good  gardeners,  or  their  lands  would  have 
l)een  too  poor  to  support  them.  For  the  decoration  of  the 
chapels  where  they  prayed,  and  for  the  comfort  of  the  refecto- 
ries where  they  ate  and  drank,  it  was  necessary  that  there  should 
be  good  carpenters,  good  smiths,  good  painters,  among  them. 
For  their  greater  safety  in  sickness  and  accident,  living  alone 
by  themselves  in  solitary  places,  it  was  necessary  that  they 
.should  study  the  virtues  of  plants  and  herbs,  and  should  know 
liow  to  dress  cuts,  burns,  scalds,  and  bruises,  and  how  to  set 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ATHELSTAN.  27 

broken  limbs.  Accordingly,  they  taught  themselves  and  one 
another  a  great  variety  of  useful  arts,  and  became  skilful  in 
agriculture,  medicine,  surgery,  and  handicraft.  And  when  they 
wanted  the  aid  of  any  little  piece  of  machinery, — which  would 
be  simple  enough  now,  but  was  marvellous  then, — to  impose  a 
trick  upon  the  poor  peasants,  they  knew  very  well  how  to  make 
it  ;  and  did  make  it  many  a  time  and  often,  I  have  no  doubt. 

Dunstan,  Abbot  of  Glastonbury  Abbey,  was  one  of  the  most 
sagacious  of  these  monks.  He  was  an  ingenious  smith,  and 
worked  at  a  forge  in  a  little  cell.  This  cell  was  made  too  short 
to  admit  of  his  lying  ^t  full  length  when  he  went  to  sleep  ;  (as 
if  that  did  any  good  to  anybody  !)  and  he  used  to  tell  the  most 
extraordinary  lies  about  demons  and  spirits,  who,  he  said,  came 
thereto  persecute  him.  For  instance,  he  related,  that,  one  day 
when  he  was  at  work,  the  Devil  looked  in  at  the  little  window, 
and  tried  to  tempt  him  to  lead  a  life  of  idle  pleasure  ;  where- 
upon, having  his  pincers  in  the  fire,  red-hot,  he  seized  the  Devil 
by  the  nose,  and  put  him  to  such  pain,  that  his  bellowings  were 
heard  for  miles  and  miles.  Some  people  are  inclined  to  think 
this  nonsense  a  part  of  Dunstan's  madness  (for  his  head  never 
quite  recovered  the  fever)  ;  but  I  think  not.  I  observe  that  it 
induced  the  ignorant  people  to  consider  him  a  holy  man,  and 
that  it  made  him  very  powerful ;  which  was  exactly  what  he 
always  wanted. 

On  the  day  of  the  coronation  of  the  handsome  boy-king 
Edwy,  it  was  remarked  by  Odo,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (who 
was  a  Dane  by  birth),  that  the  king  quietly  left  the  coronation- 
feast,  while  all  the  company  were  there.  Odo,  much  displeased, 
sent  his  friend  Dunstan  to  seek  him.  Dunstan,  finding  him  in 
the  company  of  his  beautiful  young  wife  Elgiva,  and  her  mother 
Ethelgiva,  a  good  and  virtuous  lady,  not  only  grossly  abused 
them,  but  dragged  the  young  king  back  into  the  feasting-hall 
by  force.  Some,  again,  think  Dunstan  did  this  because  the 
young  king's  fair  wife  was  his  own  cousin  ;  and  the  monks 
objected  to  people  marrying  their  own  cousins ;  but  I  believe 
he  did  it  because  he  was  an  imperious,  audacious,  ill-condi- 
tioned priest,  who,  having  loved  a  young  lady  himself  before  he 
became  a  sour  monk,  hated  all  love  now,  and  everything  be- 
longing to  it. 

The  young  king  was  quite  old  enough  to  feel  this  insult. 
Dunstan  had  been  treasurer  in  the  last  reign  ;  and  he  soon 
charged  Dunstan  with  having  taken  some  of  the  last  king's 
T^v^^.  The  Glastonbury  abbot  fled  to  Belgium  (very  narrowly 
scaping  some  pursuers  who  were  sent  to  put  out  his  eyes,  as 


2g  A  CmiD'S  msTOky  OF  ENGLAND. 

you  will  wish  they  had,  when  you  read  what  follows),  and  his 
abbey  was  .;i\en  to  priests  who  were  married  ;  whom  he  always, 
both  before  and  afterwards,  opposed.  But  he  quickly  conspired 
with  his  friend  Odo,  the  Dane,  to  set  up  the  king's  young 
brother  Edgar,  as  his  rival  for  the  throne  ;  and,  not  content 
with  this  revenge,  he  caused  the  beautiful  queen  Elgiva,  though 
a  lovely  girl  of  only  seventeen  or  eighteen,  to  be  stolen  from 
one  of  the  royal  palaces,  branded  in  the  cheek  with  a  red-hot 
iron,  and  sold  into  slavery  in  Ireland.  But  the  Irish  people 
pitted  and  befriended  her  ;  and  they  said,  "  Let  us  restore  the 
girl-queen  to  the  boy-king,  and  make  the  young  lovers  happy  !  " 
And  they  cured  her  of  her  cruel  wound,  and  sent  her  home  as 
beautiful  as  before.  But  the  villain,  Dunstan,  and  that  other 
villain,  Odo,  caused  her  to  be  waylaid  at  Gloucester  as  she  was 
joyfully  hurrying  to  join  her  husband,  and  to  be  hacked  and 
hewn  with  swords,  and  to  be  barbarously  maimed  and  lamed, 
and  left  to  die.  When  Edwy  the  Fair  (his  people  called  him 
so  because  he  was  so  young  and  handsome)  heard  of  her  dread- 
ful fate,  he  died  of  a  broken  heart ;  and  so  the  pitiful  story  of 
the  poor  young  wife  and  husband  ends.  Ah  !  Better  to  be  two 
cottagers  in  these  better  times,  than  king  and  queen  of  England 
in  those  bad  days,  though  never  so  fair  t 

Then  came  the  boy-king  Edgar,  called  the  Peaceful,  fifteen 
years  old.  Dunstan,  being  still  the  real  king,  drove  all  married 
priests  out  of  the  monasteries  and  abbeys,  and  replaced  them  by 
solitary  monks  like  himself,  of  the  rigid  order  called  the  Bene- 
dictines. He  made  himself  archbishop  of  Canterbury  for  his 
greater  glory  ;  and  exercised  such  power  over  the  neigliboring 
British  princes,  and  so  collected  them  about  the  king,  that  once, 
when  the  king  held  the  court  at  Chester,  and  went  on  the  River 
Dee  to  visit  the  monastery  of  St.  John,  the  eight  oars  of  his  boat 
were  pulled  (as  the  people  used  to  dehght  in  relating  in  stories 
and  songs)  by  eight  crowned  kings,  and  steered  by  the  king  of 
England.  As  Edgar  was  very  obedient  to  Dunstan  and  the 
monks,  they  took  great  pains  to  represent  him  as  the  best  of 
kings  ;  but  he  was  really  profligate,  debauched,  and  vicious. 
He  once  forcibly  carried  oflf  a  young  lady  from  the  convent  at 
Wilton ;  and  Dunstan,  pretending  to  be  very  much  shocked, 
condemned  him  not  to  wear  his  crown  upon  his  head  for  seven 
years,  no  great  punishment,  I  dare  say,  as  it  can  hardly  have 
been  a  more  comfortable  ornament  to  wear  than  a  stewpan  with- 
out a  handle.  His  marriage  with  his  second  wife,  Elfrida,  is 
one  of  the  worst  events  of  his  reign.  Hearing  of  the  beauty  of 
this  lady,  he  despatched  his  favorite  courtier,  Athelwold,  to  her 


ENGLAND  UNDER  A  THELSTAN.  29 

father's  castle,  in  Devonshire,  to  see  if  she  were  really  as 
charming  as  fame  reported.  Now  she  was  so  exceedingly 
beautiful,  that  Athelwold  fell  in  love  with  her  himself,  and 
married  her ;  but  he  told  the  king  that  she  was  only  rich,  not 
handsome.  The  king,  suspected  the  truth  when  they  came 
home,  resolved  to  pay  the  newly  married  couple  a  visit ;  and 
suddenly  told  Athelwold  to  prepare  for  his  immediate  coming. 
Athelwold,  terrified,  confessed  to  his  young  wife  what  he  had 
said  and  done,  and  implored  her  to  disguise  her  beauty  by  some 
ugly  dress  or  silly  manner,  that  he  might  be  safe  from  the  king's 
anger.  She  promised  that  she  would  ;  but  she  was  a  proud 
woman,  who  would  far  rather  had  been  a  queen  than  the  wife 
of  a  courtier.  She  dressed  herself  in  her  best  dress,  and 
adorned  herself  with  her  richest  jewels  \  and  when  the  king 
came  presently,  he  discovered  the  cheat.  So  he  caused  his 
false  friend  Athelwold  to  be  murdered  in  a  wood,  and  married 
his  widow,  this  bad  Elfrida.  Six  or  seven  years  afterwards  he 
died,  and  was  buried  (as  if  he  had  been  all  that  the  monks  said 
he  was)  in  the  abbey  of  Glastonbury,  which  he — or  Dunstan 
for  him — had  much  enriched. 

England,  in  one  part  of  this  reign,  was  so  troubled  by 
wolves,  which,  driven  out  of  the  open  country,  hid  themselves 
in  the  mountains  of  Wales,  when  they  were  not  attacking 
travellers  and  animals,  that  the  tribute  payable  by  the  Welsh 
people  was  forgiven  them,  on  condition  of  their  producing  every 
year,  three  hundred  wolves'  heads.  And  the  Welshmen  were 
so  sharp  upon  the  wolves,  to  save  their  money,  that  in  four 
years  there  was  not  a  wolf  left. 

Then  came  the  boy-king  Edward,  called  the  Martyr,  from 
the  manner  of  his  death.  Elfrida  had  a  son,  named  Ethelred, 
for  whom  she  claimed  the  throne  ;  but  Dunstan  did  not  choose 
to  favor  him,  and  he  made  Edward  king.  The  boy  was  hunl- 
ing  one  day  down  in  Dorsetshire,  when  he  rode  near  to  Corfe 
Castle,  where  Elfrida  and  Ethelred  lived.  Wishing  to  see  them 
kindly,  he  rode  away  from  his  attendants,  and  galloped  to  the 
castle-gate,  where  he  arrived  at  twilight,  and  blew  his  hunting- 
horn.  "  You  are  welcome,  dear  king,"  said  Elfrida,  coming 
out,  with  her  brightest  smiles.  "  Pray  you  dismount  and  enter." 
"  Not  so,  dear  madam,"  said  the  king.  "  My  company  will 
miss  me,  and  fear  that  I  have  met  with  some  harm.  Please 
you  to  give  me  a  cup  of  wine,  that  I  may  drink  here  in  the 
saddle  to  you  and  to  my  little  brother,  and  so  ride  away  with 
the  good  speed  I  hav'e  made  in  riding  here."  Elfrida,  goiii^in 
to  bring  the  wine,  whispered  to  an  armed  servant,  one  of  her 


30 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


attendants,  who  stole  out  of  the  darkening  gateway,  and  crept 
round  behind  the  king's  horse.  As  the  king  raised  the  cup  to 
his  lips,  saying  "  Health  !  "  to  the  wicked  woman  who  was 
smiling  on  him,  and  to  his  innocent  brother  whose  hand  she 
held  in  hers,  and  who  was  only  ten  years  old,  this  armed  man 
made  a  spring,  and  stabbed  him  in  the  back.  He  dropped  the 
cup,  and  spurred  his  horse  away  ;  but  soon,  fainting  with  loss 
of  blood,  dropped  from  the  saddle,  and  in  his  fall,  entangled 
one  of  his  feet  in  the  stirrup.  The  frightened  horse  dashed  on, 
trailing  his  rider's  curls  upon  the  ground,  dragging  his  smooth 
young  face  through  ruts,  and  stones,  and  briers,  and  fallen 
leaves,  and  mud  ;  until  the  hunters,  tracking  the  animal's 
coursie  by  the  king's  blood,  caught  his  bridle,  and  released  the 
disfigured  body. 

Then  came  the  sixth  and  last  of  the  boy-kings,  Ethelred ; 
whom  Elfrida,  when  he  cried  out  at  the  sight  of  his  murdered 
brother  riding  away  from  the  castle-gate,  unmercifully  beat  with 
a  torch  which  she  snatched  from  one  of  the  attendants.  The 
people  so  disliked  this  boy,  an  account  of  his  cruel  mother,  and 
the  murder  she  had  done  to  promote  him,  that  Dunstan  would 
not  have  had  him  for  king ;  but  would  have  made  Edgitha,  the 
daughter  of  the  dead  king  Edgar  and  of  the  lady  whom  he  stole 
out  of  the  convent  at  Wilton,  queen  of  England,  if  she  would 
have  consented.  But  she  knew  the  stories  of  the  youthful 
kings  too  well,  and  would  not  be  persuaded  from  the  convent 
where  she  lived  in  peace  ;  so  Dunstan  put  Ethelred  on  the 
throne,  having  no  one  else  to  put  there,  and  give  him  the  nick- 
name of  "The  Unready,"  knowing  that  he  wanted  resolution 
and  firmness.  At  first  Elfrida  possessed  great  influence  over 
the  young  king ;  but  as  he  grew  older,  and  came  of  age,  her 
influence  declined.  The  infamous  woman,  not  having  it  in  her 
power  to  do  any  more  evil,  then  retired  from  court,  and 
according  to  the  fashion  of  the  time,  built  churches  and  mon- 
asteries to  expiate  her  guilt.  As  if  a  church  with  a  steeple 
reaching  to  the  very  stars  would  have  been  any  sign  of  true  re- 
pentance for  the  blood  of  the  poor  boy  whose  murdered  form 
was  trailed  at  his  horse's  heels  !  As  if  she  could  have  buried 
her  wickedness  beneath  the  senseless  stones  of  the  whole  world 
piled  up  one  upon  another  for  the  monks  to  live  in  ! 

About  the  ninth  or  tenth  year  of  this  reign  Dunstan  died. 
He  was  growing  old  then,  but  was  as  stern  and  artful  as  ever. 
Two  circumstances  that  happened  in  connection  with  him,  in 
this  reign  of  Ethelred,  made  a  great  noise.  Once  he  was  pres- 
ent at  a  meeting  of  the  Church,  when  the  question  was  dis- 

4i^' 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ATHELSTAN.  31 

cussed  whether  priests  should  have  permission  to  marry  :  and 
as  he  sat  with  his  head  hung  down,  apparently  thinking  about 
it,  a  voice  seemed  to  come  out  of  a  crucifix  in  the  room,  and 
warn  the  meeting  to  be  of  his  opinion.  This  was  some  juggling 
of  Dunstan's,  and  was  probably  his  own  voice  disguised.  But 
he  played  off  a  worse  juggle  than  that  soon  afterwards  ;  for 
another  meeting  being  held  on  the  same  subject,  and  he'  and 
his  supporters  being  seated  on  one  side  of  a  great  room,  and 
their  opponents  on  the  other,  he  rose  and  said,  "To  Christ 
himself,  as  Judge,  do  I  commit  this  cause  !  "  Immediately  on 
these  words  being  spoken,  the  floor  where  the  opposite  party 
sat  gave  way  ;  and  some  were  killed,  and  many  wounded.  You 
may  be  pretty  sure  that  it  had  been  weakened  under  Dunstan's 
direction,  and  that  it  fell  at  Dunstan's  signal.  His  part  of  the 
floor  did  not  go  down.  No,  no  !  He  was  too  good  a  workman 
for  that. 

When  he  died,  the  monks  settled  that  he  was  a  saint,  and 
called  him  St.  Dunstan  ever  afterwards.  They  might  just  as 
well  have  settled  that  he  was  a  coach-horse,  and  could  just  as 
easily  have  called  him  one. 

Ethelred  the  Unready  was  glad  enough,  I  dare  say,  to  be 
rid  of  this  holy  saint ;  but  left  to  himself,  he  was  a  poor,  weak 
king,  and  his  reign  was  a  reign  of  defeat  and  shame.  The 
restless  Danes,  led  by  Sweyn,  a  son  of  the  king  of  Denmark, 
who  had  quarrelled  with  his  father,  and  had  been  banished  from 
home,  again  came  into  England,  and  year  after  year  attacked 
and  despoiled  large  towns.  To  coax  these  sea-kings  away,  the 
weak  Ethelred  paid  them  money  ;  but  the  more  money  he  paid, 
the  more  money  the  Danes  wanted.  At  first  he  gave  them  ten 
thousand  pounds ;  on  their  next  invasion,  sixteen  thousand 
pounds ;  on  their  next  invasion,  four-and-twenty  thousand 
pounds  j  to  pay  which  large  sums,  the  unfortunate  English 
people  were  heavily  taxed.  But  as  the  Danes  still  came  back 
and  wanted  more,  he  thought  it  would  be  a  good  plan  to  marry 
into  some  powerful  foreign  family  that  would  help  him  with 
soldiers.  So  in  the  year  1002,  he  courted  and  married  Emma, 
the  sister  of  Richard,  Duke  of  Normandy, — a  lady  who  was 
called  the  Flower  of  Normandy. 

And  now  a  terrible  deed  was  done  in  England^  the  like  of 
which  was  never  done  on  English  ground  before  or  since.  On 
the  13th  of  November,  in  pursuance  of  secret  instructions  sent 
by  the  king  over  the  whole  country,  the  inhabitants  of  every 
town  and  city  armed,  and  murdered  all  the  Danes  who  were 
Vheir  neighbors.     Young  and  old,  babies  and  soldiers,  men  and 


Ss 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


women  — every  Dane  was  killed.  No  doubt  there  were  among 
them  many  Terocious  men,  who  had  done  the  English  great 
wrong,  and  whose  pride  and  insolenc  in  swaggering  in  the 
houres  of  the  English,  and  insulting  the.:  wives  and  daughters, 
had  L.come  unbearable ;  but,  no  doubt,  there  were  also  among 
whem  many  peaceful.  Christian  Danes,  who  had  married  English 
wome'.i,  and  become  like  P!^nglish  men.  They  were  all  slain, 
oven  to  Gunhilda,  the  sister,  of  the  King  of  Denmark,  married 
to  an  En-^hsh  lord  ;  who  was  first  obliged  to  see  the  murder  of 
her  husband  and  her  child,  and  then  was  killed  herself. 

When  the  king  of  the  sea-kings  heard  of  this  deed  of  blood, 
he  swore  that  he  would  have  a  great  revenge.  He  raised  an 
army,  and  a  mightier  fleet  of  ships  than  ever  yet  had  sailed  to 
England.  And  in  all  his  army  there  was  not  a  slave  nor  an  old 
man  ;  but  every  soldier  was  a  free  man,  and  the  son  of  a  free 
man,  and  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  sworn  to  be  revenged  upon 
the  English  nation,  for  the  massacre  of  lliai  dread  13th  of  No 
vember,  when  his  countrymen  and  countrywomen,  and  t'.c 
little  children  whom  diey  loved,  were  killed  by  fire  and  swor;i 
And  so  the  sea-kitigs  came  to  England  in  many  great  ships, 
each  bearing  the  flag  of  its  own  commander.  Golden  eagle-., 
ravens,  dragons,  dolphins,  beasts  of  prey,  threatened  Englaiu: 
from  the  prows  of  those  ships,  as  they  came  onward  througli 
the  water ;  and  were  reflected  in  tlie  sliining  shields  that  huiig 
upon  their  sides.  The  ship  tljat  bore  the  standard  of  the  king 
of  the  sea-kings  v.as  carved  and  painted  like  a  mighty  serpent , 
and  the  king  in  his  anger,  prayed  that  the  gods  in  whom  he 
trusted  might  all  desert  him,  if  his  serpent  did  not  strike  its 
fangs  into  England's  heart. 

And  indeed  it  did.  For  the  great  army,  landing  from 
the  great  fleet  near  Exeter,  went  forward,  laying  England  waste, 
and  striking  their  lances  in  the  earth  as  they  advanced,  or 
throwing  them  into  rivers,  in  token  of  their  making  all  the 
is. and  theirs.  In  remembrance  of  the  Black  November  night 
vv'hen  the  Danes  were  murdered,  wheresoever  the  invaders 
came,  they  made  the  Saxons  prepare  and  spread  for  them  great 
''easts  \  and  when  they  had  eaten  those  feasts,  and  had  drunk 
a  curse  to  England  with  wild  rejoicings,  they  drew  their  swords, 
and  killed  their  Saxon  entertamers,  and  marched  on.  For  six 
long  years  tiiey  carried  on  this  war  ;  burning  the  crops,  farm- 
houses, barns,  mills,  granaries  ;  killing  the  laborers  in  the 
fields ;  preventing  the  seeds  from  being  sown  in  the  ground  ; 
causing  famine  and  starvation  :  leaving  only  heaps  of  ruin  and 
»moking  ashes,  where  they  had  found  rich  towns.    To  crown 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ATHELSTAN. 


33 


this  misery,  English  officers  and  men  deserted ;  and  even  the 
favorites  of  Ethelred  the  Unready,  becoming  traitors,  seized 
many  of  the  English  ships,  turned  pirates  againc:  their  own 
country,  and  aided  by  a  storm,  occasioned  the  loss  of  nearly 
the  whole  English  navy= 

There  was  but  one  man  of  note,  at  this  miserable  pass,  wh© 
was  true  to  his  country  and  the  feeble  '^ing.  He  was  r.  priest, 
and  a  brave  one.  For  twenty  days  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury defended  that  city  against  its  Danish  besiegers  ;  and  when 
a  traitor  in  the  town  threw  ^he  gates  open,  and  admitted  them, 
he  said,  in  chains,  "  I  wi'l  not  buy  my  life  with  money  that 
must  be  extorted  from  the  suffering  people.  Do  with  me  what 
you  please  !  "  Again  and  again,  he  steadily  refused  to  pur- 
chase his  release  with  gold  wrung  from  the  poor. 

At  last  the  Danes,  being  tired  of  this,  and  being  assembled 
at  a  drunken  merry-making,  had  him  brought  into  the  feasting- 
hall. 

"  Now,  bishop,"  they  said,  "  we  want  gold." 

He  looked  round  on  the  crowd  of  angry  faces, — from  the 
shaggy  beards  close  to  him,  to  the  :haggy  beards  against  the 
walls,  where  men  were  mounted  on  tables  and  forms  to  see 
him  over  the  heads  of  otherr, — and  he  knew  that  his  time  was 
come. 

"I  have  no  gold,"  said  he. 

"  Get  it,  bishop  !  "  they  all  thundered. 

**  That  I  have  often  told  you  I  wdll  not,"  said  he. 

They  gathered  closer  round  him,  threatening ;  but  he  stood 
unmoved.  Then  one  man  struck  him  ;  then  another  •  then 
a  cursing  soldier  picked  up  from  a  heap  in  the  corner  of  the 
hall,  where  fragments  had  been  rudely  throv/n  at  dinner,  a 
great  .^x-bone,  and  cast  it  at  his  face,  from  which  the  blood 
came  spurting  forth  ;  then  others  ran  to  the  same  heap,  and 
knocked  him  down  with  other  bones,  and  bruised  and  battered 
him  ;  until  one  soldier  whom  he  baptized  (willing,  ?.z  I  hope 
for  the  sake  of  that  soldier's  sonl,  to  shorten  the  sufferings  of 
the  good  man)  struck  him  dead  with  his  battle-axe. 

If  Ethelred  had  had  the  heart  to  emulat  the  courage  of 
this  noble  archbishop,  he  might  have  dene  something  yet. 
But  he  paid  the  Danes  iLorty-eight  thousand  pounds,  instead  ; 
and  gained  so  little  by  the  cowardly  act.  thr.t  Sweyn  soorv 
afterwards  came  over  to  subdue  2a.<  England,  ou  broken  was 
the  attachment  of  the  English  people  by  this  timCj  to  :heir  m- 
capablc  King  and  their  forlorn  countr)'-;  which  could  not  pro- 
ject tli^m,  that  t'l-:'  welcf  med  Sweyn  on  ali  sides  as  a  deUv- 


34  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

erer.  London  faithfully  stood  out  as  long  as  the  king  was 
within  its  walls ;  but  when  he  sneaked  away,  it  also  welcomed 
tlie  Dane.  Then  all  was  over;  and  the  king  took  refuge 
abroad  with  the  Duke  of  Normandy,  who  had  already  given 
shelter  to  the  king's  wife  (once  the  flower  of  that  country), 
and  to  her  children. 

Still  the  English  people,  in  spite  of  their  sad  sufferings, 
could  not  quite  forget  the  great  king  Alfred  and  the  Saxon 
race.  When  Sweyn  died  suddenly,  in  little  more  than  a  month 
after  he  had  been  proclaimed  king  of  England,  they  generously 
sent  to  Ethelred,  to  say  that  they  would  have  him  for  their 
king  again,  "  if  he  would  only  govern  them  better  than  he  had 
governed  them  before."  The  Unready,  instead  of  coming  him- 
self, sent  Edward,  one  of  his  sons,  to  make  promises  for  him. 
At  last  he  followed,  and  the  English  declared  him  king.  The 
Danes  declared  Canute,  the  son  of  Sweyn,  king.  Thus  direful 
war  began  again,  and  lasted  for  three  years ;  when  the  Un- 
ready died.  And  I  know  oi  nothing  better  that  he  did  in  all 
his  reign  of  eight-and-thirty  years. 

Was  Canute  to  be  king  now  ?  Not  over  the  Saxons,  they 
said :  they  must  have  Edmund,  one  of  the  sons  of  the  Unready, 
who  was  surnamed  Ironside  because  of  his  strength  and  stature. 
Edmund  and  Canute  thereupon  fell  to,  and  fought  five  battles. 
O  unhappy  England  !  what  a  fighting-ground  it  was  !  And 
then  Ironside,  who  was  a  big  man,  proposed  to  Canute,  who 
was  a  little  man,  that  they  two  should  fight  it  out  in  single 
combat.  If  Canute  had  been  the  big  man,  he  would  probably 
have  said  yes ;  but,  being  the  little  man,  he  decidedly  said  no. 
However,  he  declared  that  he  was  willing  to  divide  the  king- 
dom,— to  take  all  that  lay  north  of  Watling  Street,  as  the  old 
Roman  military  road  from  Dover  to  Chester  was  called,  and 
to  give  Ironside  all  that  lay  south  of  it.  Most  men  being  weary 
of  so  much  bloodshed,  this  was  done.  But  Canute  soon  be- 
came sole  king  of  England  ;  for  Ironside  died  suddenly  within 
two  months.  Some  think  that  he  was  killed,  and  killed  by 
Canute's  orders.     No  one  knows. 


E^,:GLANiJ  CINDER  CANUTE  THE  DANE.  ^- 


CHAPTER  V. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   CANUTE   THE   DANE. 

Canute  reigned  eighteen  years.  He  was  a  merciless  king 
at  first.  After  he  had  clasped  the  hands  of  the  Saxon  chiefs, 
m  token  of  the  sincerity  with  which  he  swore  to  be  just  and 
good  to  them  in  return  for  their  acknowledging  him,  he  de- 
.^.ounced  and  slew  many  of  them,  as  well  as  many  relations  of 
the  late  king.  "  He  who  brings  me  the  head  of  one  of  my  ene- 
mies," he  used  to  say,  "  shall  be  dearer  to  me  than  a  brother." 
And  he  was  so  severe  in  hunting  down  his  enemies,  that  he 
must  have  got  together  a  pretty  large  family  of  these  dear 
brothers.  He  was  strongly  inclined  to  kill  Edmund  and  Ed- 
ward, two  children,  sons  of  poor  Ironside  ;  but,  being  afraid  to 
do  so  in  England,  he  sent  them  over  to  the  king  of  Sweden, 
with  a  request  that  the  king  would  be  so  good  as  to  "  dispose 
of  them."  If  the  king  of  Sweden  had  been  like  many,  many 
other  men  of  that  day,  he  would  have  had  their  innocent  throats 
cut ;  but  he  was  a  kind  man,  and  brought  them  up  tenderly. 

Normandy  ran  much  in  Canute's  mind.  In  Normandy  were 
the  two  children  of  the  late  king. — Edward  and  Alfred  by  name-, 
and  their  uncle,  the  duke,  might  one  day  claim  the  crown  for 
them.  But  the  duke  showed  so  little  inclination  to  do  so  now, 
that  he  proposed  to  Canute  to  marry  his  sister,  the  widow  of 
the  Unready  ;  who,  being  but  a  showy  flower,  and  caring  for 
nothing  so  much  as  becoming  a  queen  again,  left  her  children, 
and  was  wedded  to  him. 

Successful  and  triumphant,  assisted  by  the  valor  of  the  Eng- 
lish in  his  foreign  wars,  and  with  little  strife  to  trouble  him  at 
home,  Canute  had  a  prosperous  reign,  and  made  many  improve- 
ments, He  was  a  poet  and  a  musician.  He  grew  sorry  as  he 
grew  older,  for  the  blood  he  had  shed  at  first ;  and  went  to 
Rome  in  a  pilgrim's  dress,  by  way  of  washing  it  out.  He  gave 
a  great  deal  of  money  to  foreigners  on  his  journey ;  but  he  took 
it  from  the  English  before  he  started.  On  the  whole,  however, 
he  certainly  became  a  far  better  man  when  he  had  no  opposi- 
tion to  contend  with  ;  and  was  as  great  a  king  as  England  had 
known  for  some  time. 

The  old  writers  of  history  relate  how  that  Canute  was  one 


36 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


day  disgusted  with  his  courtiers  for  their  flattery ;  and  how  he 
caused  his  chair  to  be  set  on  the  cea-shore,  and  feigned  to  com- 
mand the  tide  C3  it  came  up  not  to  wet  the  edge  of  his  robe,  for 
the  land  was  his  :  how  the  tide  came  up,  of  course,  without  re- 
garding him  ;  and  how  he  then  turned  to  his  flatterers,  and  re- 
buked them,  saying,  what  was  the  might  of  any  earthly  king 
to  the  might  of  the  Creator,  who  could  say  unto  the  sea,  "  Thus 
far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  fartlier  !  "     We  may  learn  from  this,  I 
think,  that  a  little  sense  will  go  a  long  way  in  a  king :  and  that 
courtiers  arc  not  easily  cured  of  flattery,  nor  kings  of  a  liking 
for  it.     If  the  courtiers  of  Canute  had  not  known,  long  before, 
that  the  king  was  fond  of  flattery,  they  would  have  known  bet- 
ter than  to  offer  it  in  such  large  doses.     And  if  they  had  not 
known  that  he  was  vain  of  this  speech,  (anything  but  a  wonder 
ful  speech,  it  seems  to  me,  if  a  good  child  had  made  it  !),  they 
would  not  have  been  at  such  great  pains  to  repeat  it,     I  fancy 
[  see  them  all  on  the  sea-shore  together  ;  the  king's  chair  sink- 
mg  in  the  sand  ;  the  king  in  a  mighty  good-humor  with  his  own 
wisdom  3  and  the  courtiers  pretending  to  be  quite  stunned  by  it ! 
It  is  not  the  sea  alone  that  is  bidden  to  go  "thus  far,  and 
no  farther,"     The  great  command  goes  forth  to  all  the  kmgs 
upon  the  earth;  and  went  to    Canute  in  the  year  1035,  and 
stretched  him  dead  upon  his  bed.     Beside  it  stood  his  Norman 
wife.     Perhaps,  as  the  king  looked  his  last  upon  her,  he,  who 
had    so    often    thought    distrustfully  of  Normandy   long   ago, 
thought  once  more   of  the   two  exiled  princes  in  their  uncle's 
court,  and  of  the  little  favor  they  could  feel  for  either  Danes  or 
Saxons ;  and  of  a  rising  cloud  in  Normandy  that  slowly  moved 
towards  England. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

ENGLAND  UNDER  HAROLD  HAREFOOT,  HARDICANUTE,  AND 
EDWARD  THE  CONFESSOR. 

Canute  left  three  sons,  byname  Sweyn,  Harold,  and  Hardi- 
Canute  ;  but  his  queen,  Emma,  once  the  Flower  of  Normandy^ 
was  the  mother  of  only  Hardicanute.  Canute  had  wished  his 
dominions  to  be  divided  between  the  three,  and  had  wished 
Harold  to  have  England  ;  but  the  Saxon  people  in  the  south  of 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HAROLD  BAREFOOT,  ETC.         37 

England,  headed  by  a  nobleman  with  great  possessions,  called 
the  powerful  Earl  Godwin  (who  is  said  to  have  been  originally 
a  poor  cow-boy),  opposed  this,  and  desired  to  liave,  instead, 
either  Hardicanute,  or  one  of  the  two  exiled  princes  who  were 
over  in  Normandy.  It  seemed  so  certain  that  there  would  be 
more  blood  shed  to  settle  this  dispute,  that  many  people  left 
their  homes,  and  took  refuge  in  the  woods  and  swamps.  Hap- 
pily, however,  it  was  agreed  to  refer  the  whole  question  to  a 
great  meeting  at  Oxford,  which  decided  that  Harold  should 
have  all  the  country  north  of  the  Thames,  with  London  for  his 
capital  city,  and  that  Hardicanute  should  have  all  the  south. 
The  quarrel  was  so  arranged  ;  and  as  Hardicanute  was  in  Den- 
mark, troubling  himself  very  little  about  anything  but  eating, 
and  getting  drunk,  his  mother  and  Earl  Godwin  governed  the 
south  for  him. 

They  had  hardly  begun  to  do  so,  and  the  trembling  people 
who  had  hidden  themselves  were  scarcely  at  home  again,  when 
Edward,  the  elder  of  the  two  exiled  princes,  came  over  from 
Normandy  with  a  few  followers,  to  claim  the  English  crown. 
His  mother  Emma,  however,  who  only  cared  for  her  last  son 
Hardicanute,  instead  of  assisting  him,  as  he  expected,  opposed 
him  so  strongly  with  all  her  influence,  that  he  was  very  soon 
glad  to  get  safely  back.  His  brother  Alfred  was  not  so  fortu- 
nate. Believing  in  an  affectionate  letter,  written  some  time 
afterwards  to  him  and  his  brother,  in  his  mother's  name  (but 
whether  really  with  or  without  his  mother's  knowledge  is  now  un- 
certain), he  allowed  himself  to  be  tempted  over  to  England,  with 
a  good  force  of  soldiers  ;  and  landing  on  the  Kentish  coast,  and 
being  met  and  welcome  by  Earl  Godwin,  proceeded  into  Sur- 
rey, as  far  as  the  town  of  Guildford.  Here  he  and  his  men 
halted  in  the  evening  to  rest,  having  still  the  earl  in  the  com- 
pany ;  who  had  ordered  lodgings  and  good  cheer  for  them. 
But  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  when  they  were  off  their  guard, 
being  divided  into  small  parties,  sleeping  soundly  after  a  long 
march  and  a  plentiful  supper,  in  different  houses,  they  were  set 
upon  by  the  king's  troops,  and  taken  prisoners.  Next  morning 
they  were  drawn  out  in  a  line,  to  the  number  of  six  hundred 
men,  and  were  barbarously  tortured  and  killed  ;  with  the  excep- 
tion of  every  tenth  man,  who  was  sold  into  slavery.  As  to  the 
wretched  Prince  Alfred,  he  was  stripped  naked,  tied  to  a  horse, 
and  sent  away  into  the  Isle  of  Ely,  where  his  eyes  were  torn 
out  of  his  head,  and  where  in  a  few  days  he  miserably  died.  I 
am  not  sure  that  the  earl  had  wilfully  entrapped  him,  but  I  sus- 
pect it  strongly. 


38  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

Harold  was  now  king  all  over  P^ngland  ;  though  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (the  greater  part  of 
the  priests  were  Saxons,  and  not  friendly  to  the  Danes)  ever 
consented  to  crown  him.  Crowned  or  uncrowned,  with  the 
archbishop's  leave  or  without  it,  he  was  king  for  four  years  ; 
after  which  short  reign  he  died,  and  was  buried,  having  never 
done  much  in  life  but  go  a-hunting.  He  was  such  a  fast  run- 
ner at  this,  his  favorite  sport,  that  the  people  called  him  Harold 
Harefoot. 

Hardicanute  was  then  at  Bruges,  in  Flanders,  plotting  with 
his  mother  (who  had  gone  over  there  after  the  cruel  murder  of 
Prince  Alfred)  for  the  invasion  of  England.  The  Danes  and 
Saxons  finding  themselves  without  a  king,  and  dreading  new 
disputes,  made  common  cause,  and  joined  in  inviting  him  to 
occupy  the  throne.  He  consented,  and  soon  troubled  them 
enough  ;  for  he  brought  over  numbers  of  Danes,  and  taxed  the 
people  so  insupportably  to  enrich  those  greedy  favorites,  that 
there  were  many  insurrections,  especially  one  at  Worcester, 
where  the  citizens  rose,  and  killed  his  tax-collectors ;  in  revenge 
for  which  he  burned  their  city.  He  was  a  brutal  king,  whose 
first  public  act  was  to  order  the  dead  body  of  poor  Harold 
Harefoot  to  be  dug  up,  beheaded,  and  thrown  into  the  river. 
His  end  was  worthy  of  such  a  beginning.  He  fell  down  drunk, 
with  a  goblet  of  wine  in  his  hand,  at  a  wedding-feast  at  Lam- 
beth, given  in  honor  of  the  marriage  of  his  standard-bearer,  a 
Dane  named  Tower  the  Proud.     And  he  never  spoke  again. 

Edward,  afterwards  called  by  the  monks.  The  Confessor, 
succeeded  ;  and  his  first  act  was  to  oblige  his  mother  Emma, 
who  had  favored  him  so  little,  to  retire  into  the  country,  where 
she  died,  some  ten  years  afterwards.  He  was  the  exiled  prince 
whose  brother  Alfred  had  been  so  foully  killed.  He  had  been 
invited  over  from  Normandy  by  Hardicanute,  in  the  course  of 
his  short  reign  of  two  years,  and  had  been  han<^somely  treated 
at  court,  His  cause  was  now  favored  by  the  powerful  Eari 
Godwin,  and  he  was  soon  made  king.  This  earl  had  been  sus- 
pected by  the  people,  ever  since  Prince  Alfred's  cruel  death  : 
he  had  even  been  tried  in  the  last  reign  for  the  prince's  murder, 
^ut  had  been  pronounced  not  guilty ;  chiefly,  as  it  was  supposed, 
^cause  of  a  present  he  had  made  to  the  swinish  king,  of  a 
gilded  ship  with  a  figure-head  of  gold,  and  a  crew  of  eightv 
splendidly  armed  men.  It  was  his  interest  to  help  the  new  king 
with  his  power,  if  the  new  king  would  help  him  against  the 
popular  distrust  and  hatred.  So  they  made  a  bargain.  Edward 
the  Confessor  got  the  throne.     The  earl  got  more  power  and 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HAROLD  HAREFOOT,  ETC,         39 

more  land,  and  his  daughter  Editha  was  made  queen  ;  for  it 
was  a  part  of  their  compact,  that  the  king  should  take  her  for 
his  wife. 

But  although  she  was  a  gentle  lady,  in  all  things  worthy  to 
be  beloved, — good,  beautiful,  sensible,  and  kind, — the  king 
from  the  first  neglected  her.  Her  father  and  her  six  proud 
brothers,  resenting  this  cold  treatment,  harassed  the  king  greatly 
by  exerting  all  their  power  to  make  him  unpopular.  Having 
lived  so  long  in  Normandy,  he  preferred  the  Normans  to  the 
English.  He  made  a  Norman  archbishop,  and  Norman 
bishops ;  his  great  officers  and  favorites  were  all  Normans  ;  he 
introduced  the  Norman  fashions  and  the  Normdn  language  ;  in 
imitation  of  the  state  custom  of  Normandy,  he  attached  a  great 
seal  to  his  state  documents,  instead  of  merely  marking  them, 
as  the  Saxon  kings  had  done,  with  the  sign  of  the  cross, — just 
as  poor  people  who  have  never  been  taught  to  write  now  make 
the  same  mark  for  their  names.  All  this,  the  powerful  Earll 
Godwin  and  his  six  proud  sons  represented  to  the  people  as 
disfavor  shown  towards  the  English ;  and  thus  they  daily  in- 
creased their  own  power,  and  daily  diminished  the  power  of  the 
king. 

They  were  greatly  helped  by  an  event  that  occurred  when 
he  had  reigned  eight  years.  Eustace,  Earl  of  Boulogne,  who 
had  married  the  king's  sister,  came  to  England  on  a  visit. 
After  staying  at  the  court  some  time,  he  set  forth,  with  his 
numerous  train  of  attendants,  to  return  home.  They  were  to 
embark  at  Dover.  Entering  that  peaceful  town  in  armor,  they 
took  possession  of  the  best  houses,  and  noisily  demanded  to  be 
lodged  and  entertained  without  payment.  One  of  the  bold 
men  of  Dover,  who  would  not  endure  to  have  these  domineer- 
ing strangers  jingling  their  heavy  swords  and  iron  corselets  up 
and  down  his  house,  eating  his  meat  and  drinking  his  strong 
liquor,  stood  in  his  doorway,  and  refused  admission  to  the  first 
armed  man  who  came  there.  The  armed  man  drew  and  wounded 
him.  The  man  of  Dover  struck  the  armed  man  dead.  Intelli- 
gence of  what  he  had  done  spreading  through  the  streets  to 
where  the  Count  Eustace  and  his  men  were  standing  by  theii 
horses,  bridle  in  hand,  they  passionately  mounted,  galloped  to 
the  house,  surrounded  it,  forced  their  way  in  (the  doors  and 
windows  being  closed  when  they  came  up)  and  killed  the  man 
of  Dover  at  his  own  fireside.  They  then  clattered  through  the 
streets,  cutting  down  and  riding  over  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren. This  did  not  last  long,  you  may  believe.  'J'Se  men  of 
Dover  set  upon  them  with  great  fury,  killed  nineteen  of  the 


40 


A  CHILD'S  HISTOID  Y  OF  ENGLAND. 


foreigners,  wounded  many  more,  and,  biockading  the  road  to 
the  port,  so  that  they  should  not  embark,  beat  them  out  of 
the  town  by  the  way  they  had  come.  Hereupon  Count 
Eustace  rides  as  hard  as  man  can  ride  to  Gloucester,  where 
Edward  is,  surrounded  by  Norman  monks  and  Norman  lords. 
"Justice!  "  cries  the  count,  "upon  the  men  of  Dover,  who 
have  set  upon  and  slain  my  people!  "  The  king  sends  imme- 
diately for  the  powerful  Earl  Godwin,  who  happens  to  be 
near;  reminds  him  that  Dover  is  under  his  government;  and 
orders  him  to  repair  to  Dover,  and  do  military  execution  on 
the  inhabitants.  "  It  does  not  become  you,"  says  the  proud 
earl  in  reply,  "  to  condemn  without  a  hearing  those  whom 
you  have  sworn  to  protect.     I  will  not  do  it." 

The  king,  therefore,  summoned  the  earl,  on  pain  of  banish- 
ment, and  loss  of  his  titles  and  property,  to  appear  before  the 
court  to  answer  this  disobedience.  The  earl  refused  to  appear. 
He,  his  eldest  son  Harold,  and  his  second  son  Sweyn  hastily 
raised  as  many  fighting-men  as  their  utmost  power  could  col- 
lect, and  demanded  to  have  Count  Eustace  and  his  followers 
surrendered  to  the  justice  of  the  country.  The  king,  in  his 
turn,  refused  to  give  them  up,  and  raised  a  strong  force. 
After  some  treaty  and  delay,  the  troops  of  the  great  earl  and 
his  sons  began  to  fall  off.  The  earl,  with  a  part  of  his 
family  and  abundance  of  treasure,  sailed  to  Flanders  ;  Har- 
old escaped  to  Ireland  ;  and  the  power  of  the  great  famil}^ 
was  gone  in  England.     But  the  people  did  not  forget  them. 

Then  Edward,  the  Confessor,  with  the  true  meanness  of  a 
mean  spirit,  visited  his  dislike  of  the  once  powerful  father 
and  sons  upon  the  helpless  daughter  and  sister,  his  unoffend- 
ing wife,  whom  all  who  saw  her  (her  husband  and  his  monks 
excepted)  loved.  He  seized  rapaciously  upon  her  fortune 
and  her  jewels;  and,  allowing  her  only  one  attendant,  con- 
fined her  in  a  convent,  of  which  a  sister  of  his,  no  doubt  an 
unpleasant  lady  after  his  own  heart,  was  abbess,  or  jailer. 

Having  got  Earl  Godwin  and  his  six  sons  well  out  of  his 
way,  the  king  favored  the  Normans  more  than  ever.  He  in- 
vited over  William,  Duke  of  Normandy,  the  son  of  that  duke 
who  had  received  him  and  his  murdered  brother  long  ago,  and 
of  a  peasant  girl,  a  tanner's  daughter,  with  whom  the  duke  had 
fallen  in  love  for  her  beauty,  as  he  saw  her  washing  clothes  in  a 
brook.  William,  who  was  a  great  warrior,  with  a  passion  for 
fine  horses,  dogs,  and  arms,  accepted  the  invitation;  and  the 
Normans  in  England,  finding  themselves  more  numerous  than 
ever  when  he  arrived  with  his  retinue,  and  held  in  still  greater 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HAROLD  HAREFOOT,  ETC.         41 

ho»or  at  court  than  before,  became  more  and  more  haughty  to- 
wards the  people,  and  were  more  and  more  disUked  by  them. 

The  old  Earl  Godwin,  though  he  was  abroad,  knew  well 
how  the  people  felt ;  for,  with  part  of  the  treasure  he  had  carried 
away  with  him,  he  kept  spies  and  agents  in  his  pay  all  over 
England.  Accordingly,  he  thought  the  time  was  come  for  fit- 
ting out  a  great  expedition  against  the  Norman-loving  king. 
With  it  he  sailed  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where  he  was  joined  by 
his  son  Harold,  the  most  gallant  and  brave  of  all  his  family. 
And  so  the  father  and  son  came  sailing  up  the  Thames  to 
Southwark  ;  great  numbers  of  the  people  declaring  for  them, 
and  shouting  for  the  English  earl  and  the  English  Harold, 
against  the  Norman  favorites  ! 

The  king  was  at  first  as  blind  and  stubborn  as  kings  usu- 
ally have  been  whensoever  they  have  been  in  the  hands  of 
monks.  But  the  people  rallied  so  thickly  round  the  old  earl 
and  his  son,  and  the  old  earl  was  so  steady  in  demanding,  with^ 
out  bloodshed,  the  restoration  of  himself  and  his  family  to  their 
rights,  that  at  last  the  court  took  the  alarm.  The  Norman 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  Norman  Bishop  of  London, 
surrounded  by  their  retainers,  fought  their  way  out  of  London, 
and  escaped  from  Essex  to  France  in  a  fishing-boat.  The  oth.er 
Norman  favorites  dispersed  in  all  directions.  The  old  earl  and 
his  sons  (except  Sweyn)j  who  had  committed  crimes  against 
the  law,  were  P^^.'-Lred  to  their  possessions  and  dignities. 
Editha,  the  virtuouij  and  lovely  queen  of  the  insensible  king, 
was  tn.imphantiy  releasea  from  her  prison,  the  convent,  and 
once  more  sat  in  her  chair  of  state,  arrayed  in  the  jewels  of 
which,  when  she  had  no  champion  to  support  her  rights,  her 
cold-blooded  husband  had  deprived  her. 

The  old  Earl  Godwin  did  not  long  enjoy  his  restored  for 
tune.  He  fell  down  in  a  fit  at  the  king's  table,  and  died  upon 
the  third  day  afterwards.  Harold  succeeded  to  h4s  power,  and 
to  a  far  higher  place  in  the  attachment  of  the  people,  than  his 
father  had  ever  held.  By  his  valor  he  subdued  the  king's  ene- 
mies in  many  bloody  fights.  He  was  vigorous  against  rebels 
in  Scotland, — this  was  the  time  when  Macbeth  slew  Duncan, 
upon  which  event  our  English  Shakespeare,  hundreds  of  years 
afterwards  wrote  his  great  tragedy  ;  and  he  killed  the  restless 
Welsh  King  Griffith,  and  brought  his  head  to  England. 

What  Harold  was  doing  at  sea,  when  he  was  driven  on  the 
French  coast  by  a  tempest,  is  not  at  all  certain  ;  nor  does  it  at 
all  matter.  That  his  ship  was  forced  by  a  storm  on  that  shore, 
and  that  he  was  taken  prisoner,  there  is  no  doubt.     In  those 


42 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


barbarous  days,  all  shipwrecked  strangers  were  taken  prisoners, 
and  obliged  to  pay  ransom.  So  a  certain  Count  Guy,  who  was 
the  lord  of  Ponthieu,  where  Harold's  disaster  happened,  seized 
him,  instead  of  relieving  him  like  a  hospitable  and  Christian 
lord,  as  he  ought  to  have  done,  and  expected  to  make  a  very 
good  thing  of  it. 

But  Harold  sent  off  immediately  to  Duke  William  of  Nor- 
mandy, complaining  of  this  treatment ;  and  the  duke  no  sooner 
heard  of  it  than  he  ordered  Harold  to  be  escorted  to  the  an- 
cient town  of  Rouen,  where  he  then  was,  and  where  he  received 
him  as  an  honored  guests.  Now  some  writers  tell  us  that  Ed- 
ward the  Confessor,  who  was  by  this  time  old  and  had  no  chil- 
dren, had  made  a  will,  appointing  Duke  William  of  Normandy 
his  successor,  and  had  informed  the  duke  of  his  having  done 
so.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  was  anxious  about  his  succea 
sor ;  because  he  had  even  invited  over  from  abroad,  Edward 
the  Outlaw,  a  son  of  Ironside,  who  had  come  to  England  with 
his  wife  and  three  children ;  but  whom  the  king  had  strangely 
refused  to  see  when  he  did  come,  and  who  had  died  in  London 
suddenly  (princes  were  terribly  liable  to  sudden  death  in  those 
days),  and  had  been  buried  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  Th^  king 
might  possibly  have  made  such  a  will ;  or,  having  always  been 
fond  of  the  Normans,  he  might  have  encouraged  Norman  Wil- 
liam to  aspire  to  the  English  crown,  by  something  that  he  said 
to  him  when  he  was  staying  at  the  English  court.  But  cer- 
tainly William  did  now  aspire  to  it ;  and  knowing  that  Harold 
would  be  a  powerful  rival,  he  called  together  a  great  assembly 
of  his  nobles,  offered  Harold  his  daughter  Adele  in  marriage, 
informed  him  that  he  meant,  on  King  Edward's  death,  to  claim 
the  English  crown  as  his  own  inheritance,  and  required  Harold 
then  and  there  to  swear  to  aid  him.  Harold,  being  in  the 
duke's  power,  took  this  oath  upon  the  missal,  or  prayer-book. 
It  is  a  good  example  of  the  superstitions  of  the  monks,  that  this 
missal,  instead  of  being  placed  upon  a  table,  was  placed  upon 
a  tub ;  which,  when  Harold  had  sworn,  was  uncovered,  and 
shown  to  be  full  of  dead  men's  bones, — bones,  as — the  monks 
pretended,  of  saints.  This  was  supposed  to  make  Harold's 
oath  a  great  deal  more  impressive  and  binding.  As  if  the  great 
name  of  the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth  could  be  made  more 
solemn  by  a  knuckle-bone,  or  a  double-tooth,  or  a  finger-nail  of 
Dunstan  ! 

Within  a  week  or  two  after  Harold's  return  to  England,  the 
dreary  old  Confessor  was  found  to  be  dying.  After  wandering 
in  his  mind  like  a  very  weak  old  man,  he  died.     As  he  had  put 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HAROLD  THE  SECOND.  43 

himself  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  monks  when  he  was  alive, 
they  praised  him  lustily  when  he  was  dead.  They  had  gone 
so  far  already  as  to  persuade  him  that  he  could  work  miracles  ; 
and  had  brought  people  afflicted  with  a  bad  disorder  of  the 
skin  to  him,  to  be  touched  and  cured.  This  was  called  "  touch- 
ing for  the  king's  evil,"  which  afterwards  became  a  royal  cus- 
tom. You  know,  however,  who  really  touched  the  sick,  and 
healed  them  ;  and  you  know  His  sacred  name  is  not  among  the 
dusty  line  of  human  kings. 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

ENGLAND    UNDER    HAROLD    THE    SECOND,    AND    CONQUERED    BY 

THE  NORMANS. 

Harold  was  crowned  king  of  England  on  the  very  day  of 
the  maudlin  Confessor's  funeral.  He  had  good  need  to  be 
quick  about  it.  When  the  news  reached  Norman  William, 
hunting  in  his  park  at  Rouen,  he  dropped  his  bow,  returned  to 
his  palace,  called  his  nobles  to  council,  and  presently  sent  am- 
bassadors to  Harold,  calling  on  him  to  keep  his  oath,  and  re- 
sign the  crown.  Harold  would  do  no  such  thing.  The  barons 
of  France  leagued  together  round  Duke  William  for  the  inva- 
sion of  England.  Duke  William  promised  freely  to  distribute 
English  wealth  and  English  lands  among  them.  The  Pope 
sent  to  Normandy  a  consecrated  banner,  and  a  ring  containing 
a  hair  which  he  warranted  to  have  grown  on  the  head  of  St. 
Peter.  He  blessed  the  enterprise,  and  cursed  Harold ;  and 
requested  that  the  Normans  would  pay  "  Peter's  Pence  " — or  a 
tax  to  himself  of  a  penny  a  year  on  every  house — a  little  more 
regularly  in  future,  if  they  could  make  it  convenient. 

King  Harold  had  a  rebel  brother  in  Flanders,  who  was  a 
vassal  of  Harold  Hardrada,  King  of  Norway.  This  brother, 
and  this  Norwegian  king,  joining  their  forces  against  England, 
with  Duke  William's  help,  won  a  fight  in  which  the  English 
were  commanded  by  two  nobles,  and  then  besieged  York. 
Harold,  who  was  waiting  for  the  Normans  on  the  coast  at 
Hastings  with  his  army,  marched  to  Stamford  Bridge  upon  the 
River  Derwent  to  give  them  instant  battle. 

He  found  them  drawn  up  in  a  hollow  circle,  marked  ou4.- 


^  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  EiJGLAND. 

their  shining  spears.  Riding  round  this  circle  at  a  distance,  to 
survey  it,  he  saw  a  brave  figure  on  horseback,  in  a  bkie  mantle 
and  a  bright  helmet,  whose  horse  suddenly  stumbled  and  threw 
him. 

"  Who  is  that  man  who  has  fallen  ?  "  Harold  asked  of  one 
of  his  captains. 

"  The  king  of  Norway,"  he  replied. 

"  He  is  a  tall  and  stately  king,"  said  Harold  ;  "  but  his  end 
is  near." 

He  added,  in  a  little  while,  "  Go  yonder  to  my  brother,  and 
tell  him,  if  he  withdraws  his  troops,  he  shall  be  Earl  of  North 
umberland,  and  rich  and  powerful  in  England." 

The  captain  rode  away,  and  gave  the  message. 

"  What  will  he  give  to  my  friend  the  king  of  Norway  ?  ' 
asked  the  brother. 

"  Seven  feet  of  earth  for  a  grave,"  replied  the  captain. 

"  No  more  ?  "  returned  the  brother,  with  a  smile. 

"  The  king  of  Norway  being  a  tall  man,  perhaps  a  little 
more,"  replied  the  captain. 

"  Ride  back  !  "  said  the  brother,  "  and  tell  King  Harold  to 
make  ready  for  the  fight." 

He  did  so  very  soon.  And  such  a  fight  King  Harold  led 
against  that  force,  that  his  brother,  and  the  Norwegian  king, 
and  every  chief  of  note  in  all  their  host,  except  the  Norwegian 
king's  son,  Olave,  to  whom  he  gave  honorable  dismissal,  were 
left  dead  upon  the  field.  The  victorious  army  marched  to 
York.  As  King  Harold  sat  there  at  the  feast,  in  the  midst  of 
all  his  company,  a  stir  was  heard  at  the  doors  ;  and  messengers 
all  covered  with  mire,  from  riding  far  and  fast  through  broken 
ground,  came  hurrying  in  to  report  that  the  Normans  had 
landed  in  England. 

The  intelligence  was  true.  They  had  been  tossed  about  by 
contrary  winds,  and  some  of  their  ships  had  been  wrecked.  A 
part  of  their  own  shore,  to  which  they  had  been  driven  back, 
was  strewn  with  Norman  bodies.  But  they  had  once  more 
made  sail,  led  by  the  duke's  own  galley,  a  present  from  his 
wife,  upon  the  prow  whereof  the  figure  of  a  golden  boy  stood 
pointing  towards  England.  By  day,  the  banner  of  the  three 
Lions  of  Normandy,  the  divers-colored  sails,  the  gilded  vanes, 
the  many  decorations  of  this  gorgeous  ship,  had  glittered  in  the 
sun  and  sunny  water  ;  by  night,  a  light  had  sparkled  like  a  star 
at  her  mast-head.  And  now,  encamped  near  Hastings,  with 
their  leader  lying  in  the  old  Roman  castle  of  Pevensey,  the  Eng- 
lish retiring  in  all  directions,  the  land  for  miles  around  scorched 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HAROLD  THE  SECOND. 


45 


and  smoking,  fired  and  pillaged,  was  the  whole  Norman  power, 
hopeful  and  strong  on  English  ground. 

Harold  broke  up  the  feast  and  hurried  to  London.  Within 
a  week  his  army  was  ready.  He  sent  out  spies  to  ascertain  the 
Norman  strength.  William  took  them,  caused  them  to  be  led 
through  his  whole  camp,  and  then  dismissed. 

"  The  Normans,"  said  these  spies  to  Harold,  "  are  not 
bearded  on  the  upper  lip,  as  we  English  are,  but  are  shorn. 
They  are  priests." 

"  My  men,"  replied  Harold,  with  a  laugh,  "  will  find  those 
priests  good  soldiers  !  " 

"  The  Saxons,"  reported  Duke  William's  outposts  of  Nor- 
man soldiers,  who  were  instructed  to  retire  as  King  Harold's 
army  advanced,  "  rush  on  us  through  their  pillaged  country, 
with  the  fury  of  madmen." 

"  Let  them  come,  and  come  soon ! "  said  Duke  William. 

Some  proposals  for  a  reconciliation  were  made,  but  were 
soon  abandoned.  In  the  middle  of  the  month  of  October,  in 
the  year  one  thousand  and  sixty-six,  the  Normans  and  the  Eng- 
lish came  front  to  front.  All  night  the  armies  lay  encamped 
before  each  other,  in  a  part  of  the  country  then  called  Senlac, 
now  called  (in  remembrance  of  them)  Battle.  With  the  first 
dawn  of  day,  they  arose.  There,  in  the  faint  light,  were  the 
English  on  a  hill  \  a  wood  behind  them ;  in  their  midst,  the 
royal  banner  representing  a  fighting  warrior,  woven  in  gold 
thread,  adorned  with  precious  stones  ;  beneath  the  banner,  as 
it  rustled  in  the  wind,  stood  King  Harold  on  foot,  with  two  of 
his  remaining  brothers  by  his  side  ;  around  them,  still  and  silent 
as  the  dead,  clustered  the  whole  English  army, — every  soldier 
covered  by  his  shield,  and  bearing  in  his  hand  his  dreaded 
English  battle-axe. 

On  an  opposite  hill,  in  three  lines,  archers,  foot-soldiers, 
horsemen,  was  the  Norman  force.  Of  a  sudden,  a  great  battle- 
cry,  "  God  help  us  !  "  burst  from  the  Norman  lines.  The  Eng- 
lish answered  with  their  own  battle-cry,  "  God's  Rood  ! 
Holy  Rood  ! "  The  Normans  then  came  sweeping  down  the 
hill  to  attack  the  English. 

There  was  one  tall  Norman  knight  who  rode  before  the  Nor- 
man army  on  a  prancing  horse,  throwing  up  his  heavy  sword 
and  catching  it,  and  singing  of  the  bravery  of  his  countrymen. 
An  English  knight,  who  rode  out  from  the  English  force  to 
meet  him,  fell  by  this  knight's  hand.  Another  English  knight 
rode  out,  and  he  fell  too.  But  then  a  third  rode  out,  and  killed 
♦•^^  Norman.  This  was*  in  the  first  beginning  of  the  fight.  It 
soon  raged  everywhere 


46  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

The  English,  keeping  side  by  side,  in  a  great  mass,  cared  no 
more  for  the  showers  of  Norman  arrows  than  if  they  had  been 
showers  of  Norman  rain.  When  the  Norman  horsemen  rode 
against  them,  with  their  battle-axes  they  cut  men  and  horses 
down.  The  Normans  gave  way.  The  English  pressed  forward. 
A  cry  went  forth  among  the  Norman  troops  that  Duke  William 
was  killed.  Duke  William  took  off  his  helmet,  in  order  that  his 
face  might  be  distinctly  seen,  and  rode  along  the  line  before 
his  men.  This  gave  them  courage.  As  they  turned  again  to  face 
the  English,  some  of  their  Norman  horse  divided  the  pursuing 
body  of  the  English  from  the  rest ;  and  thus  all  that  foremost 
portion  of  the  English  army  fell,  fighting  bravely.  The  main 
body  still  remaining  firm,  heedless  of  the  Norman  arrows,  and, 
with  their  battle-axes,  cutting  down  the  crowds  of  horsemen 
when  they  rode  up  like  forests  of  young  trees, — Duke  William 
pretended  to  retreat.  The  eager  English  followed.  The  Nor- 
man army  closed  again,  and  fell  upon  them  with  great  slaughter. 

"  Still,"  said  Duke  William,  "  there  are  thousands  of  the 
English,  firm  as  rocks  around  their  king.  Shoot  upward,  Nor- 
man archers,  that  your  arrows  may  fall  down  upon  their  faces." 

The  sun  rose  high,  and  sank,  and  the  battle  still  raged. 
Through  all  the  wild  October  day,  the  clash  and  din  resounded 
in  the  air.  In  the  red  sunset,  and  in  the  white  moonlight,  heaps 
upon  heaps  of  dead  men  lay  strewed,  a  dreadful  spectacle,  all 
over  the  ground.  King  Harold  wounded  with  an  arrow,  in  the 
eye,  was  nearly  blind.  His  brothers  were  already  killed. 
Twenty  Norman  knights,  whose  battered  armor  had  flashed 
fiery  and  golden  in  the  sunshine  all  day  long,  and  now  looked 
silvery  in  the  moonlight,  dashed  forward  to  seize  the  royal  ban- 
ner from  the  English  knights  and  soldiers  still  faithfully  col- 
lected round  their  blinded  king.  The  king  received  a  mortal 
wound  and  dropped.  The  English  broke  and  fled.  The  Nor- 
mans rallied,  and  the  day  was  lost. 

O,  what  a  sight  beneath  the  moon  and  stars,  when  lights 
were  shining  in  the  tent  of  victorious  Duke  William,  which 
was  pitched  near  the  spot  where  Harold  fell ;  and  he  and  his 
knights  were  carousing  within  ;  and  soldiers  with  torches,  going 
slowly  to  and  fro,  without,  sought  for  the  corpse  of  Harold 
among  piles  of  dead  ;  and  the  warrior,  worked  in  golden  thread 
and  precious  stones,  lay  low,  all  torn  and  soiled  with  blood  ; 
and  the  three  Norman  lions  kept  watch  over  the  field  1 


ENGLAND  UNDER  WILLIAM  THE  FIRST.  47 


CHAPTER   VIII.     . 

ENGLAND   UNDER   WILLIAM   THE    FIRST,  THE   NORMAN   CON- 
QUEROR. 

Upon  the  ground  where  the  brave  Harold  fell,  William  the 
Norman  afterwards  founded  an  abbey,  which,  under  the  name 
of  Battle  Abbey,  was  a  rich  and  splendid  place  through  many 
a  troubled  year,  though  now  it  is  a  gray  ruin  overgrown  with  ivy. 
But  the  first  work  he  had  to  do  was  to  conquer  the  English 
thoroughly  ;  and  that,  as  you  know  by  this  time,  was  hard  work 
for  any  man. 

He  ravaged  several  counties ;  he  burned  and  plundered 
many  towns  ;  he  laid  waste  scores  upon  scores  of  miles  of  pleas- 
ant country ;  he  destroyed  innumerable  lives.  At  length 
Stigand,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  with  other  representatives 
of  the  clergy  and  the  people,  went  to  his  camp,  and  submitted 
to  him.  Edgar,  the  insignificant  son  of  Edmund  Ironside,  was 
proclaimed  king  by  others,  but  nothing  came  of  it.  He  fled  to 
Scotland  afterwards,  where  his  sister,  who  was  young  and 
beautiful,  married  the  Scottish  king.  Edgar  himself  was  not 
important  enough  for  anybody  to  care  much  about  him. 

On  Christmas  Day,  William  was  crowned  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  under  the  title  of  William  the  First ;  but  he  is  best 
known  as  William  the  Conqueror.  It  was  a  strange  coronation. 
One  of  the  bishops  who  performed  the  ceremony  asked  the 
Normans,  in  French,  if  they  would  have  Duke  William  for  their 
king.  They  answered  Yes.  Another  of  the  bishops  put  the  same 
question  to  the  Saxons,  in  English,  They,  too,  answered  Yes, 
with  a  loud  shout.  The  noise  being  heard  by  a  guard  of  Nor- 
man horse-soldiers  outside,  was  mistaken  for  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  English.  The  guard  instantly  set  fire  to  the  neigh- 
boring houses,  and  a  tumult  ensued,  in  the  midst  of  which  the 
king,  being  left  alone  in  the  abbey  with  a  few  priests  (and  they 
all  being  in  a  terrible  fright  together)  was  hurriedly  crowned. 
When  the  crown  was  placed  upon  his  head,  he  swore  to  govern 
the  English  as  well  as  the  best  of  their  own  monarchs.  I  dare- 
say you  think,  as  I  do,  that,  if  we  except  the  Great  Alfred,  he 
might  pretty  easily  have  done  that. 

Numbers  of  the  English  nobles  had  been  killed  in  the  last 
disastrous  battle.    Their  estates,  and  the  estates  of  all  the  nobles 


4S  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

who  had  fought  against  him  there,  King  WilUam  seized  upon, 
and  gave  to  his  own  Norman  knights  and  nobles.  Many  great 
EngHsh  families  of  the  present  time  acquired  their  English 
lands  in  this  way,  and  are  very  proud  of  it. 

But  what  is  got  by  force  must  be  maintained  by  force.  These 
nobles  were  obliged  to  build  castles  all  over  England,  to  defend 
their  new  property ;  and,  do  what  he  would,  the  king  could 
neither  soothe  nor  quell  the  nation  as  he  wished.  He  gradually 
introduced  the  Norman  language  and  the  Norman  customs  ; 
yet  for  a  long  time,  the  great  body  of  the  English  remained 
sullen  and  revengeful.  On  his  going  over  to  Normandy,  to 
visit  his  subjects  there,  the  oppressions  of  his  half-brother  Odo, 
whom  he  left  in  charge  of  his  English  kingdom,  drove  the  peo- 
ple mad.  The  men  of  Kent  even  invited  over,  to  take  posses- 
sion of  Dover,  their  old  enemy,  Count  Eustace  of  Boulogne, 
who  had  left  the  fray  when  the  Dover  man  was  slain  at  his  own 
fireside.  The  men  of  Pereford,  aided  by  the  Welsh,  and  com- 
manded by  a  chief  named  Edric  the  Wild,  drove  the  Normans 
out  of  their  country.  Some  of  those  who  had  been  dispossessed 
of  their  lands  banded  together  in  the  North  of  England,  some 
in  Scotland,  some  in  the  thick  woods  and  marshes ;  and  when- 
soever they  could  fall  upon  the  Normans,  or  upon  the  English 
who  had  submitted  to  the  Normans,  they  fought,  despoiled,  and 
murdered,  like  the  desperate  outlaws  that  they  were.  Conspira- 
cies were  set  on  foot  for  a  general  massacre  of  the  Normans, 
like  the  old  massacre  of  the  Danes.  In  short,  the  English  were 
in  a  murderous  mood  all  through  the  kingdom. 

King  William,  fearing  he  might  lose  his  conquest,  came 
back  and  tried  to  pacify  the  London  people  by  soft  words.  He 
then  set  forth  to  repress  the  country  people  by  stern  deeds. 
Among  the  towns  which  he  besieged,  and  where  he  killed  and 
maimed  the  inhabitants  without  any  distinction,  sparing  none, 
young  or  old,  armed  or  unarmed,  were  Oxford,  Warwick,  Lei- 
cester, Nottingham,  Derby,  Lincoln,  York.  In  all  these  places, 
and  in  many  others,  fire  and  sword  worked  their  utmost  horrors, 
and  made  the  land  dreadful  to  behold.  The  streams  and  rivers 
were  discolored  with  blood  ;  the  sky  was  blackened  with  smoke  ; 
the  fields  were  wastes  of  ashes ;  the  waysides  w^ere  heaped  up 
with  dead.  Such  are  the  fatal  results  of  conquest  and  ambi- 
tion !  Although  William  was  a  harsh  and  angry  man,  I  do  not 
suppose  that  he  deliberately  meant  to  work  this  shocking  ruin, 
when  he  invaded  England.  But  what  he  had  got  by  the  strong 
hand,  he  could  only  keep  by  the  strong  hand ;  and  in  so  doing 
he  made  England  a  great  grave.  / 


ENGLAND  UNDER  WILLIAM  THE  FIRST.  49 

Two  sons  of  Harold,  by  name  Edmund  and  Godwin,  came 
over  from  Ireland  with  some  ships  against  the  Normans,  but 
were  defeated.  This  was  scarcely  done,  when  the  outlaws  in 
the  woods  so  harassed  York,  that  the  governor  sent  to  the  king 
for  help.  The  king  despatched  a  general  and  a  large  force  to 
occupy  the  town  of  Durham.  The  bishop  of  that  place  met  the 
general  outside  the  town,  and  warned  him  not  to  enter,  as  he 
would  be  in  danger  there.  The  general  cared  nothing  for  the 
warning,  and  went  in  with  all  his  men.  That  night,  on  every  hill 
within  sight  of  Durham,  signal-fires  were  seen  to  blaze.  When 
the  morning  dawned,  the  English,  who  had  assembled  in  great 
strength,  forced  the  gates,  rushed  into  the  town,  and  slew  the 
Normans  every  one.  The  English  afterwards  besought  the 
Danes  to  come  and  help  them.  The  Danes  came  with  two 
hundred  and  forty  ships.  The  outlawed  nobles  joined  them  ; 
they  captured  York,  and  drove  the  Normans  oat  of  that  city. 
Then  William  bribed  the  Danes  to  go  away,  and  took  such 
vengeance  on  the  English,  that  all  the  former  fire  and  sword, 
smoke  and  ashes,  death  and  ruin,  were  nothing  compared  with 
it.  In  melancholy  songs  and  doleful  stories,  it  was  still  sung 
and  told  by  cottage-fires,  on  winter  evenings  a  hundred  years 
afterwards,  how,  in  those  dreadful  days  of  the  Normans,  there 
was  not,  from  the  River  Humber  to  the  River  Tyne,  one  in- 
habited village  left,  nor  one  cultivated  field, — how  there  was 
nothing  but  a  dismal  ruin,  where  the  h^^man  creatures  and  the 
beasts  lay  dead  together. 

The  outlaws  had,  at  this  time,  whac  they  called  a  Camp  of 
Refuge,  in  the  midst  of  the  fens  of  Cambridgeshire.  Protected 
by  those  marshy  grounds  which  were  difficult  of  approach,  they 
lay  among  the  reeds  and  rushes,  and  were  hidden  l3y  the  mists 
that  rose  up  from  the  watery  earth.  Now  there  also  was  at  thai 
time,  over  the  sea  in  Flanders,  an  Englishman  named  Here^ 
ward,  whose  father  had  died  in  his  absence,  and  whose  property 
had  been  given  to  a  Norman.  When  he  heard  of  this  wrong 
that  had  been  done  him  (from  such  of  the  exiled  English  as 
chanced  to  wander  into  that  country),  he  longed  for  revenge ; 
and  joining  the  outlaws  in  their  camp  of  refuge,  became  their 
commander.  He  was  so  good  a  soldier,  that  the  Normans  sup- 
posed him  to  be  aided  by  enchantment.  William,  even  after  he 
had  made  a  road  three  miles  in  length  across  the  Cambridge- 
shire marshes,  on  purpose  to  attack  this  supposed  enchanter, 
thought  it  necessary  to  engage  an  old  lady  who  pretended  to  be 
a  sorceress,  to  come  and  do  a  little  enchantment  in  the  royal 
cause.     For  this  purpose  she  was  pushed  on  before  the  troops 


io  CHILD'S  HISTGL  i    OF  ENGLAND. 

in  a  wooden  tower  ;  but  Hereward  very  soon  disposed  of  this 
unfortunate  sorceress,  by  burning  her,  tower  and  all. 

The  monks  of  the  convent  of  Ely,  near  at  hand,  however, 
who  were  fond  of  good  living,  and  who  found  it  very  uncom- 
fortable to  have  the  country  blockaded  and  their  supplies  of 
meat  and  drink  cut  off,  showed  the  king  a  secret  way  of  sur- 
prising the  camp.  So  Hereward  was  soon  defeated.  Whether 
he  afterwards  died  quietly,  or  whether  he  was  killed  after  kill- 
ing sixteen  of  the  men  who  attacked  him  (as  some  old  rhymes 
relate  that  he  did),  I  cannot  say.  His  defeat  put  an  end  to  the 
Camp  of  Refuge ;  and,  very  soon  afterwards,  the  king,  victori- 
ous both  in  Scotland  and  in  England,  quelled  the  last  rebellious 
English  noble.  He  then  surrounded  himself  with  Norman 
lords,  enriched  by  the  property  of  English  nobles  ;  had  a  great 
survey  made  of  all  the  land  in  England,  which  was  entered  as 
the  property  o'^  its  new  owners,  on  a  roll  called  Doomsday 
Book  ;  obliged  ibe  people  to  put  out  their  fires  and  candles  at  a 
certain  hour  every  night,  on  the  ringing  of  a  bell  which  was 
called  The  Curfew  ;  introduced  the  Norman  dresses  and  man- 
ners ;  made  the  Normans  masters  everywhere,  and  the  English 
servants ;  turned  out  the  English  bishops,  and  put  Normans  in 
their  places ;  and  showed  himself  to  be  the  Conqueror  indeed. 

But,  even  with  his  own  Normans,  he  had  a  restless  life. 
They  were  always  hungering  and  thirsting  for  the  riches  of  the 
English  ;  and  the  more  he  gave,  the  more  they  wanted.  His 
priests  were  as  greedy  as  his  soldiers.  We  know  of  only  one 
Norman  who  plainly  told  his  master  the  king,  that  he  had  come 
with  him  to  England  to  do  his  duty  as  a  faithful  servant,  and 
that  property  taken  by  force  from  other  men  had  no  charms  for 
him.  His  name  was  Guilbert.  We  should  not  forget  his  name ; 
for  it  is  good  to  remember  and  to  honor  honest  men. 

Besides  all  these  troubles,  William  the  Conqueror  was 
troubled  by  quarrels  among  his  sons.  He  had  three  living. 
Robert,  called  Curthose,  because  of  his  short  legs  ;  William, 
called  Rufus,  or  the  Red,  from  the  color  of  his  hair;  and 
Henry,  fond  of  learning,  and  called,  in  the  Norman  language, 
Beauclerc,  or  Fine-Scholar.  When  Robert  grew  up,  he  asked 
of  his  father  the  government  of  Normandy,  which  he  had  nomi- 
nally possessed,  as  a  child,  under  his  mother  Matilda.  The 
king  refusing  to  grant  it,  Robert  became  jealous  and  discon- 
tented ;  and  happening  one  day,  while  in  this  temper,  to  be 
ridiculed  by  his  brothers,  who  threw  water  on  him  from  a  bal- 
cony as  he  was  walking  before  the  door,  he  drew  his  sword, 
njshed  up  stairs,  and  was  only  prevented  by  the  king  himself 


ENGLAND  UNDER  WILLIAM  THE  FIRST,  ci 

from  putting  them  to  death.  That  same  night,  he  hotly 
departed  with  some  followers  from  his  father's  court,  anr! 
endeavored  to  take  the  Castle  of  Rouen  by  surprise.  Failinir 
in  this,  he  shut  himself  up  in  another  castle  in  Normandy,  which 
the  king  besieged,  and  where  Robert  one  day  unhorsed  and 
and  nearly  killed  him  without  knowing  who  he  was.  His  sub- 
mission when  he  discovered  his  father,  and  the  intercession  o\ 
the  queen  and  others,  reconciled  them,  but  not  soundly ;  foi 
Robert  soon  strayed  abroad,  and  went  from  court  to  court  with 
his  complaints.  He  was  a  gay,  careless,  thoughtless  fellow, 
spending  all  he  got  on  musicians  and  dancers ;  but  his  mother 
loved  him,  and  often,  against  the  king's  command,  supplied  him 
with  money  through  a  messenger  named  Samson.  At  length 
the  incensed  king  swore  he  would  tear  out  Samson's  eyes  ;  and 
Samson,  thinking  that  his  only  hope  of  safety  was  in  becoming 
a  monk,  became  one,  went  on  such  errands  no  more,  and  kept 
his  eyes  in  his  head. 

All  this  time,  from  the  turbulent  day  of  his  strange  corona* 
tion,  the  Conqueror  had  been  struggling,  you  see,  at  any  cost 
of  cruelty  and  bloodshed,  to  maintain  what  he  had  seized.  All 
his  reign  he  struggled  still,  with  the  same  object  ever  before 
him.     He  was  a  stern,  bold  man,  and  he  succeeded  in  it. 

He  loved  money,  and  was  particular  in  his  eating ;  but  he 
had  only  leisure  to  indulge  one  other  passion,  and  that  was  his 
love  of  hunting.  He  carried  it  to  such  a  height,  that  he  ordered 
whole  villages  and  towns  to  be  swept  away  to  make  forests  for 
the  deer.  Not  satisfied  with  sixty-eight  royal  forests,  he  laid 
waste  an  immense  district  to  form  another  in  Hampshire, 
called  the  New  Forest.  The  many  thousands  of  miserable 
peasants  who  saw  their  little  houses  pulled  down,  and  them- 
selves and  children  turned  into  the  open  country  without  a  shel- 
ter, detested  him  for  his  merciless  addition  to  their  many 
sufferings  ;  and  when  in  the  twenty-first  year  of  his  reign  (which 
proved  to  be  the  last),  he  went  over  to  Rouen,  England  was  as 
full  of  hatred  against  him  as  if  every  leaf  on  every  tree  in  all 
his  royal  forests  had  been  a  curse  upon  his  head.  In  the  New 
Forest,  his  son  Richard  (for  he  had  four  sons)  had  been  gored 
to  death  by  a  stag  ;  and  the  people  said  that  this  so  cruelly 
made  forest  would  yet  be  fatal  to  others  of  the  Conqueror  s 
race. 

He  was  engaged  in  a  dispute  with  the  king  of  France  about 
some  territory.  While  he  stayed  at  Rouen,  negotiating  with 
that  king,  he  kept  his  bed  and  took  medicines  ;  being  advised 
by  his  physicians  to  do  so,  on  account  of  having  grown  to  an 


52 


A  CHILD'S  HISTOR  V  OF  ENGLAND, 


unwieldy  size.  Word  being  brought  to  him  that  the  king  of 
France  made  light  of  this,  and  joked  about  it,  he  swore  in  a 
great  rage  that  he  should  rue  his  jests.  He  assembled  his 
army,  marched  into  the  disputed  territory,  burnt — his  old  way ! 
— the  vines,  the  crops  and  fruit,  and  set  the  town  of  Nantes  on 
fire.  But  in  an  evil  hour ;  for,  as  he  rode  over  the  hot  ruins, 
his  horse,  setting  his  hoofs  upon  some  burning  embers,  started, 
threw  him  forward  against  the  pommel  of  the  saddle,  and  gave 
him  a  mortal  hurt.  For  six  weeks  he  lay  dying  in  a  monastery 
near  Rouen,  and  then  made  his  will,  giving  England  to  William, 
Normandy  to  Robert,  and  five  thousand  pounds  to  Henry. 
And  now  his  violent  deeds  lay  heavy  on  his  mind.  He  ordered 
money  to  be  given  to  many  English  churches  and  monasteries, 
and — which  was  much  better  repentance — released  his  prisoners 
of  state,  some  of  whom  had  been  confined  in  his  dungeons 
twenty  years. 

It  was  a  September  morning,  and  the  sun  was  rising,  when 
the  king  was  awakened  from  slumber  by  the  sound  of  a  church- 
bell.  "  What.bell  is  chat?"  he  faintly  asked.  They  told  him 
it  was  the  bell  of  the  chapel  of  Saint  Mary.  "  I  commend  my 
soul,"  said  he,  "  to  Mary  !  "  and  died. 

Think  of  his  name.  The  Conqueror,  and  then  consider  how 
he  lay  in  death  !  The  moment  he  was  dead,  his  physicians, 
priests,  and  nobles,  not  knowing  what  contest  for  the  throne 
might  now  take  place,  or  what  might  happen  in  it,  hasteneil 
away,  each  man  for  himself  and  his  own  property ;  the  merce- 
nary servants  of  the  court  began  to  rob  and  plunder ;  the  body 
of  the  king,  in  the  indecent  strife,  was  rolled  from  the  bed,  and 
lay  alone  for  hours  upon  the  ground.  O  Conqueror  !  of  whom 
so  many  great  names  are  proud  now,  of  whom  so  many  great 
names  thought  nothing  then,  it  were  better  to  have  conquered 
one  true  heart  than  England  ! 

By  and  by  the  priests  came  creeping  in  wdth  prayers  and  can- 
dles, and  a  good  knight,  named  Herluin,  undertook  (which  no 
one  else  would  do)  to  convey  the  body  to  Caen,  in  Normandy,  in 
order  that  it  might  be  buried  in  St.  Stephen's  Church  there,  which 
the  Conqueror  had  founded.  But  fire,  of  which  he  had  made 
such  bad  use  in  his  life,  seemed  to  follow  him  of  itself  in  death. 
A  great  conflagration  broke  out  in  the  town  when  the  body  was 
placed  in  the  church  ;  and  those  present  running  out  to  ex- 
tinguish the  flames,  it  was  once  again  left  alone. 

It  was  not  even  buried  in  peace.  It  was  about  to  be  let 
down  in  its  royal  robes  into  a  tomb  near  the  high  altar,  in  pres- 
ence of  a  great  concourse  of  people,  when  a  loud  voice  in  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  WILLIAM  THE  SECOND.  53 

crowd  cried  out,  "  This  ground  is  mine !  Upon  it  stood  my 
fatJier's  house.  This  king  despoiled  me  of  both  ground  and 
house  to  build  this  church.  In  the  great  name  of  God,  I  here 
forbid  this  body  to  be  covered  with  the  earth  that  is  my  right !  " 
The  priests  and  bishops  present,  knowing  the  speaker's  right, 
and  knowing  that  the  king  had  often  denied  him  justice,  paid 
him  down  sixty  shillings  for  the  grave.  Even  then  the  corpse 
was  not  at  rest.  The  tomb  was  too  small,'  and  they  tried  to 
force  it  in.  It  broke,  a  dreadful  smell  arose,  the  people  hurried 
out  into  the  air,  and  for  the  third  time  it  was  left  alone. 

Where  were  the  Conqueror's  three  sons,  that  they  were  not 
at  their  father's  burial .''  Robert  was  lounging  among  ministrels, 
dancers,  and  gamesters  in  France  or  Germany.  Henry  was 
carrying  his  five  thousand  pounds  safely  away  in  a  convenient 
chest  he  had  got  made.  William  the  Red  was  hurrying  to 
England  to  lay  his  hands  upon  the  royal  treasure  and  the  crown. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   WILLIAM   THE   SECOND,    CALLED   RUFUS. 

William  the  Red,  in  breathless  haste,  secured  the  three 
great  forts  of  Dover,  Pevensey,  and  Hastings,  and  made  with 
hot  speed  for  Winchester,  where  the  royal  treasure  was  kept. 
The  treasurer  delivering  him  the  keys,  he  found  that  it  amounted 
to  sixty  thousand  pounds  in  silver,  besides  gold  and  jewels. 
Possessed  of  this  wealth,  he  soon  persuaded  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  to  crown  him,  and  became  William  the  Second, 
King  of  England. 

Rufus  was  no  sooner  on  the  throne  than  he  ordered  into 
prison  again  the  unhappy  state  captives  whom  his  father  had  set 
free,  and  directed  a  goldsmith  to  ornament  his  father's  tomb  pro- 
fusely with  gold  and  silver.  It  would  have  been  more  dutiful 
in  him  to  have  attended  the  sick  Conqueror  when  he  was  dy- 
ing ;  but  England  itself,  like  this  Red  King  who  once  governed 
it,  has  sometimes  made  expensive  tombs  for  dead  men  whom  it 
treated  shabbily  when  they  were  alive. 

The  king's  brother,  Robert  of  Normandy,  seeming  quite 
content  to  be  only  duke  of  that  country,  and  the  king's  other 
brother,  Fine-Scholar,  being  quiet  enough  wdth  his  five  thou- 
sand pounds  in  a  chest,  the  king  flattered  himself,  we  may  sup- 


54 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


pose,  with  the  hope  of  an  easy  reign.  But  easy  reigns  were 
difficult  to  have  in  those  days.  The  turbulent  Bishop  Odo 
(who  had  blessed  the  Norman  army  at  the  battle  of  Hastings, 
and  who,  I  dare  say,  took  all  the  credit  of  the  victory  to  him- 
self) soon  began,  in  concert  with  some  powerful  Norman  nobles, 
to  trouble  the  Red  King. 

The  truth  seems  to  be,  that  this  bishop  and  his  friends,  who 
had  lands  in  England  and  lands  in  Normandy,  wished  to  hold 
both  under  one  sovereign  :  and  greatly  preferred  a  thoughtless, 
good-natured  person  sucii  as  Robert  was  to  Rufus  ;  who,  though 
far  from  being  an  amiable  man  in  any  respect,  was  keen,  and 
not  to  be  imposed  upon.  They  declared  in  Robert's  favor,  and 
retired  to  their,  castles  (those  castles  were  very  troublesome  to 
kings)  in  a  sullen  humor.  The  Red  King,  seeing  the  Normans 
thus  falling  from  him,  revenged  himself  upon  them  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  English,  to  whom  he  made  a  variety  of  promises, 
which  he  never  meant  to  perform, — in  particular,  promises  to 
soften  the  cruelty  of  the  Forest  Laws  ;  and  w-ho,  in  return,  so 
aided  him  with  their  valor,  that  Odo  was  besieged  in  the  Cas- 
tle of  Rochester,  and  forced  to  abandon  it,  and  to  depart  from 
England  forever ;  whereupon  the  other  rebellious  Norman 
nobles  w^ere  soon  reduced  and  scattered. 

Then  the  Red  King  went  over  to  Normandy,  where  the 
people  suffered  greatly  under  the  loose  of  Duke  Robert. 
The  king's  object  was  to  seize  upon  the  duke's  duminions. 
This  the  duke,  of  course,  prepared  to  resist ;  and  miserable 
war  between  the  two  brothers  seemed  inevitable,  when  the 
powerful  nobles  on  both  sides,  who  had  seen  so  much  of  war, 
interfered  to  prevent  it.  A  treaty  was  made.  Each  of  the  two 
brothers  agreed  to  give  up  something  of  his 'claims,  and  that 
the  longer  liver  of  the  two  should  inherit  all  the  dominions  of 
the  other.  When  they  had  come  to  this  loving  understanding, 
they  embraced,  and  joined  their  forces  against  Fine-Scholar, 
who  had  bought  some  territory  of  Robert  with  a  paitof  his  five 
thousand  pounds,  and  was  considered  a  dangerous  individual 
in  consequence. 

St.  Michael's  Mount,  in  Normandy  (there  is  another  St. 
Michael's  Mount  in  Cornwall  wonderfully  like  it),  was  then,  as 
it  is  now,  a  strong  place,  perched  upon  the  top  of  a  high  rock, 
around  which  when  the  tide  is  in^  the  sea  flows,  leaving  no 
road  to  the  main  land.  In  this  place  Fine-Scholar  shut  himself 
up  with  his  soldiers,  and  here  he  was  closely  besieged  by  his 
two  brothers.  As  one  time,  when  he  was  reduced  to  great  dis- 
tress for  want  of  water,  the  generous  Robert  not  only  permittsd 


ENGLAND  UNDER  WILLIAM  THE  SECOND. 


5S 


his  men  to  get  water,  but  sent  Fine-Scholar  wine  from  his  own 
table  ;  and  on  deing  remonstrated  with  by  the  Red  King,  said, 
**  What !  shall  we  let  our  own  brother  die  of  thirst  ?  Where 
shall  we  get  anothei  when  he  is  gone  ?  "  At  another  time  the 
Red  King,  riding  alone  on  the  shore  of  the  bay,  looking  up  at 
the  castle,  was  taken  by  two  of  Fine-Scholar's  men,  one  of 
whom  was  about  to  khl  him,  when  he  cried  out,  "  Hold,  knave ! 
1  am  the  King  of  England  !  "  The  story  says  that  the  soldier 
raised  him  from  the  ground  respectfully  and  humbly,  and  that 
the  king  took  him  into  his  service.  The  story  may  or  may  not 
be  true ;  but  at  any  rate,  it  is  true  that  Fine-Scholar  could  not 
hold  out  against  his  united  brothers,  and  that  he  abandoned 
Mount  St.  Michael,  and  wandered  about, — as  poor  and  forlorn 
as  other  scholars  have  been  sometimes  known  to  be. 

The  Scotch  became  unquiet  in  the  Red  King's  time,  and 
were  twice  defeated, — the  second  time  with  the  loss  of  their 
king,  Malcolm,  and  his  son.  The  Welsh  became  unquiet  too. 
Against  them  Rufus  was  less  successful ;  for  they  fought  among 
their  native  mountains,  and  did  great  execution  on  the  king's 
troops .  Robert  of  Normandy  became  unquiet  too  ;  and  com- 
plaining that  his  brother,  the  king,  did  not  faithfully  perform 
his  part  of  their  agreement,  took  up  arms,  and  obtained  assist- 
ance from  the  King  of  France,  whom  Rufus,  in  the  end,  bought 
off  with  vast  sums  of  money.  England  became  unquiet  too. 
Lord  Mowbray,  the  powerful  Earl  of  Northumberland,  headed 
a  great  conspiracy  to  depose  the  king,  and  to  place  upon  the 
throne  Stephen,  the  Conqueror's  near  relative.  The  plot  was 
discovered ;  all  the  chief  conspirators  were  seized  ;  some  were 
fined,  some  were  put  in  prison,  some  were  put  to  death.  The 
Earl  of  Northumberland  himself  was  shut  up  in  a  dungeon  be- 
neath Windsor  Castle,  where  he  died  an  old  man  thirty  long 
years  afterwards.  The  priests  in  England  were  more  unquiet 
than  any  other  class  or  power  ;  for  the  Red  King  treated  them 
with  such  small  ceremony,  that  he  refused  to  appoint  new 
bishops  or  archbishops  when  the  old  ones  died,  but  kept  all  the 
wealth  belonging  to  those  offices  in  his  own  hands.  In  return 
for  this,  the  priests  wrote  his  life  when  he  was  dead,  and  abused 
him  well.  I  am  inclined  to  think  myself  that  there  was  little  to 
choose  between  the  priests  and  the  Red  King ;  that  both  sides 
were  greedy  and  designing,  and  that  they  were  fairly  matched. 

The  Red  King  was  false  of  heart,  selfish,  covetous,  and 
mean.  He  had  a  worthy  minister  in  his  favorite,  Ralph,  nick- 
named— for  almost  every  famous  person  had  a  nickname  in 
those  rough  dajs — Flambard,  or  the  Firebrand.      Once  the 


^S  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

king,  being  ill,  became  penitent,  and  made  Anselm,  a  foreign 
priest  and  a  good  man,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  But  he  no 
sooner  got  well  again,  than  he  repented  of  his  repentance,  and 
persisted  in  wrongfully  keeping  to  himself  some  of  the  wealth 
belonging  to  the  archbishopric.  This  led  to  violent  disputes, 
which  were  aggravated  by  there  being  in  Rome,  at  that  time, 
two  rival  popes ;  each  of  whom  declared  he  was  the  only  real, 
original,  infallible  pope,  who  couldn't  make  a  mistake.  .  At  last 
Anselm,  knowing  the  Red  King's  character,  and  not  feeling 
himself  safe  in  England,  asked  leave  to  return  abroad.  The 
Red  King  gladly  gave  it ;  for  he  knew  that  as  soon  as  Anselm 
was  gone  he  could  begin  to  store  up  all  the  Canterbury  money 
dgain  for  his  own  use. 

By  such  metns,  and  by  taxing  and  oppressing  the  English 
people  in  everj  possible  way,  the  Red  King  became  very  rich. 
When  he  wanted  money  for  any  purpose,  he  raised  it  by  some 
rneans  or  other,  and  cared  nothing  for  the  injustice  he  did,  or 
the  misery  he  caused.  Having  the  opportunity  of  buying  from 
Robert  the  whole  duchy  of  Normandy  for  five  years,  he  taxed, 
the  English  people  more  than  ever,  and  made  the  very  convents 
sell  their  plate  and  valuables  to  supply  him  with  the  means  to 
make  the  purchase.  But  he  was  as  quick  and  eager  in  putting 
down  revolt,  as  he  was  in  raising  money  ;  for  a  part  of  the 
Norman  people  objecting — very  naturally,  I  think — to  being 
sold  in  this  way,  he  headed  an  army  against  them  with  all  the 
speed  and  energy  of  his  father.  He  was  so  impatient,  that  he 
embarked  for  Normandy  in  a  great  gale  of  wind.  And  when 
the  sailors  told  him  it  was  dangerous  to  go  to  sea  in  such  angry 
weather,  he  replied,  "  Hoist  sail  and  away  !  Did  you  ever  hear 
of  a  king  who  was  drowned  ?  " 

You  will  wonder  how  it  was  that  even  careless  Robert  came 
to  sell  his  dominions.  It  happened  thus.  It  had  long  been 
the  custom  for  many  English  people  to  make  journeys  to  Jeru- 
salem, which  were  called  pilgrimages,  in  order  that  they  might 
pray  beside  the  tomb  of  our  Saviour  there.  Jerusalem  belong- 
ing to  the  Turks,  and  the  Turks  hating  Christianity,  these 
Christian  travellers  were  often  insulted  and  ill-used.  The  pil- 
grims bore  it  patiently  for  some  time  ;  but  at  length  a  remark- 
able man  of  great  earnestness  and  eloquence,  called  Peter  the 
Hermit,  began  to  preach  in  various  places  against  the  Turks, 
and  to  declare  that  it  was  the  duty  of  good  Christians  to  drive 
away  those  unbelievers  from  the  tomb  of  our  Saviour,  and  to 
take  possession  of  it  and  protect  it.  An  excitement,  such  as 
the  world  had  never  known  before,  was  created.     Thousands 


ENGLAND  UNDER  WILLIAM  THE  SECOND.  gy 

and  thousands  of  men,  of  all  ranks  and  conditions,  departed 
for  Jerusalem  to  make  war  against  the  Turks.  The  war  is 
called  in  history  the  First  Crusade  ;  and  every  Crusader  wore 
a  cross  marked  on  his  right  shoulder. 

All  the  Crusaders  were  not  zealous  Christians.  Among 
them  were  vast  numbers  of  the  restless,  idle,  profligate  and 
adventurous  spirits  of  the  time.  Some  became  Crusaders  for 
the  love  of  change  ;  some  in  hope  of  plunder ;  some  because 
they  had  nothing  to  do  at  home  ;  some  because  they  did  what 
the  priests  told  them  ;  some  because  they  liked  to  see  foreign 
countries  ;  some  because  they  were  fond  of  knocking  men 
about,  and  would  as  soon  knock  a  Turk  about  as  a  Christian. 
Robert  of  Normandy  may  have  been  influenced  by  all  these 
motives;  and  by  a  kind  desire,  besides,  to  save  the  Christian 
pilgrims  from  bad  treatment  in  future.  He  wanted  to  raise  a 
number  of  armed  men,  and  go  to  the  Crusade.  He  could  not 
do  so  without  money.  He  had  no  money ;  and  he  sold  his  do- 
minions to  his  brother,  the  Red  King,  for  five  years.  With  the 
large  sum  thus  obtained,  he  fitted  out  his  Crusaders  gallantly, 
and  went  away  to  Jerusalem  in  martial  state.  The  Red  King, 
who  made  money  out  of  everything,  stayed  at  home,  busily 
squeezing  more  money  out  of  Normans  and  English. 

After  three  years  of  great  hardship  and  suffering,  from 
shipwreck  at  sea,  from  travel  in  strange  lands,  from  hunger, 
thirst,  and  fever,  upon  the  burning  sands  of  the  desert  and 
from  the  fury  of  the  Turks, — the  valiant  Ciusaders  got  posses- 
sion of  our  Saviour's  tomb.  The  Turks  were  still  resisting  and 
fighting  bravely,  but  this  success  increased  the  general  desire 
in  Europe  to  join  the  Crusade.  Another  great  French  duke 
was  proposing  to  sell  his  dominions  for  a  term  to  the  rich  Red 
King,  when  the  Red  King's  reign  came  to  a  sudden  and  violent 
end. 

You  have  not  forgotten  the  New  Forest  which  the  Conqueror 
made,  and  which  the  miserable  people  whose  homes  he  had 
laid  waste  so  hated.  The  cruelty  of  the  forest-laws,  and  the 
torture  and  death  they  brought  upon  the  peasantry,  increased 
this  hatred.  The  poor,  persecuted  country-people  believed  that 
the  New  Forest  was  enchanted. ,  They  said  that  in  thunder- 
storms, and  on  dark  nights,  demons  appeared,  moving  beneath 
the  branches  of  the  gloomy  trees.  They  said  that  a  terrible 
spectre  had  foretold  to  Norman  hunters  that  the  Red  King 
should  be  punished  there.  And  now,  in  the  pleasant  season  of 
May,  when  the  Red  King  had  reigned  almost  thirteen  years, 
and  a  second  prince  of  the  Conqueror's  blood — another  Rich- 


5$  ^  CHILD'S  HISTOK  V  OF  ENGLAND, 

ard,  the  son  of  Duke  Robert — was  killed  by  an  arrow  in  this 
dreaded  forest,  the  people  said  that  the  second  time  was  not 
the  last,  and  that  there  was  another  death  to  come. 

It  was  a  lonely  forest,  accursed  in  the  people's  heart  for  the 
wicked  deeds  that  have  been  done  to  make  it ;  and  no  man, 
save  the  king  and  his  courtiers  and  huntsmen,  liked  to  stray 
there.  But,  in  reality,  it  was  like  any  other  forest.  In  the 
spring,  the  green  leaves  broke  out  of  the  bud  ;  in  the  summer, 
flourished  heartily,  and  made  deep  shades ;  in  the  winter, 
shrivelled,  and  blew  down  and  lay  in  brown  heaps  on  the  moss. 
Some  trees  were  stately,  and  grew  high  and  strong ;  some  had 
fallen  of  themselves  :  some  were  felled  by  the  forester's  axe  ; 
some  were  hollow,  and  the  rabbits  burrowed  at  their  roots  ; 
some  few  were  struck  by  lightning,  and  stood  white  and  bare. 
There  were  hillsides  covered  with  rich  fern,  on  which  the  morn- 
ing dew  so  beautifully  sparkled ;  there  were  brooks  where  the 
deer  went  down  to  drink,  or  over  which  the  whole  herd  bounded, 
flying  from  the  arrows  of  the  huntsmen  ;  there  were  sunny 
glades  and  solemn  places  where  but  little  light  came  through 
the  rustling  leaves.  The  songs  of  the  birds  in  the  New  Forest 
were  pleasanter  to  hear  than  the  shouts  of  fighting  men  out- 
side ;  and  even  when  the  Red  King  and  his  court  came  hunt- 
ing through  its  solitudes,  cursing  loud  and  riding  hard,  with  a 
jingling  of  stirrups  and  bridles  and  knives  and  daggers,  they 
did  much  less  harm  there  than  among  the  English  or  Normans  ; 
and  the  stags  died  (as  they  lived)  far  easier  than  the  people. 

Upon  a  day  in  August,  the  Red  King,  now  reconciled  to 
his  brother,  Fine-Scholar,  came  with  a  great  train  in  hunt  in 
the  New  Forest.  Fine-Scholar  was  of  the  party.  They  were 
a  merry  party,  and  had  lain  all  night  at  Malwood-Keep,  a  hunt- 
ing lodge  in  the  forest,  where  they  had  made  good  cheer,  both 
at  supper  and  breakfast,  and  drunk  a  deal  of  wine.  The 
party  dispersed  in  various  directions,  as  the  custom  of  hunters 
then  was.  The  king  took  with  him  only  Sir  Walter  Tyrrel, 
who  was  a  famous  sportsman,  and  to  whom  he  had  given,  be- 
fore they  mounted  horse  that  morning,  two  fine  arrows. 

The  last  time  the  king  was  ever  seen  alive,  he  was  riding 
with  Sir  Walter  Tyrrel,  and  their  dogs  were  hunting  together. 

It  was  almost  night  when  a  poor  charcoal-burner,  passing 
through  the  forest  with  his  cart,  come  upon  the  solitary  body 
of  a  dead  man,  shot  with  an  arrow  in  the  breast,  and  still  bleed- 
ing. He  got  it  into  his  cart.  It  was  the  body  of  the  king. 
Shaken  and  tumbled,  with  its  red  beard  all  whitened  with  lime 
aPkd  dotted  with  blood,  it  was  driven  in  the  cart  by  the  char- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIRST. 


59 


coal  burner  next  day  to  Winchester  Cathedral,  where  it  was 
received  and  buried. 

Sir  Walter  Tyrrel,  who  escaped  to  Normandy,  and  claimed 
the  protection  of  the  king  of  France,  swore,  in  France,  that  the 
Red  King  was  suddenly  shot  dead  by  an  arrow  from  an  unseen 
hand,  while  they  were  hunting  together  ;  that  he  was  fearful  of 
being  suspected  as  the  king's  murderer;  and  that  he  instantly 
set  spurs  to  his  horse,  and  fled  to  the  sea-shore.  Others  de- 
clared that  the  king  and  Sir  Walter  Tyrrel  were  hunting  in 
company,  a  little  before  sunset,  standing  in  bushes  opposite 
one  another,  when  a  stag  came  between  them  ;  that  the  king 
drew  his  bow  and  took  aim,  but  the  string  broke  ;  that  the  king 
then  cried,  "  Shoot,  Walter,  in  the  Devil's  name  ! "  that  Sir 
Walter  shot ;  that  the  arrow  glanced  against  a  tree,  was  turned 
aside  from  the  stag,  and   struck  the  king  from  his  horse,  dead. 

By  whose  hand  the  Red  King  really  fell,  and  whether  that 
hand  despatched  the  arrow  to  his  breast  by  accident  or  by 
design,  is  only  known  to  God.  Some  think  his  brother  may 
have  caused  him  to  be  killed ;  but  the  Red  King  had  made  so 
many  enemies,  both  among  priests  and  people,  that  suspicion 
may  reasonably  rest  upon  a  less  unnatural  murderer.  Men 
know  no  more  than  that  he  was  found  dead  in  the  New  Forest, 
which  the  suffering  people  had  regarded  as  a  doomed  ground 
for  his  race. 


CHAPTER  X. 

ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIRST,  CALLED  FINE-SCHOLAR. 

Fine-Scholar,  on  hearing  of  the  Red  King's  death,  hurried 
to  Winchester  with  as  much  speed  as  Rufus  himself  had  made, 
to  seize  the  royal  treasure.  But  the  keeper  of  the  treasure, 
who  had  been  one  of  the  hunting-party  in  the  forest,  made 
haste  to  Winchester  too,  and,  arriving  there  at  about  the  same 
time,  refused  to  yield  it  up.  Upon  this,  Fine-Scholar  drew  his 
sword,  and  threatened  to  kill  the  treasurer  ;  who  might  have 
paid  for  his  fidelity  with  his  life,  but  that  he  knew  longer  resist- 
ance to  be  useless,  when  he  found  the  prince  supported  by  a 
company  of  powerful  barons,  who  declared  they  were  deter- 
mined to  make  him  king.  The  treasurer,  therefore,  gave  up 
"^C5  money,  and  jewels  of  the  crown  ;  and  on  the  third  day  after 


6o  A  CtflLD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

the  death  of  the  Red  King,  being  a  Sunday,  Fine-Scholar  stood 
before  the  high  ahar  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  made  a  sol- 
emn declaration,  that  he  would  resign  the  Church  property 
which  his  brother  had  seized  ;  that  he  would  do  no  wrong  to 
the  nobles  ;  and  that  he  would  restore  to  the  people  the  laws  of 
Edward  the  Confessor,  with  all  the  improvements  of  William 
the  Conqueror.     So  began  the  reign  of  King  Henry  the  First. 

The  people  were  attached  to  their  new  king,  both  because 
he  had  known  distresses,  and  because  he  was  an  Englishman 
by  birth,  and  not  a  Norman.  To  strengthen  this  last  hold  upon 
them,  the  king  wished  to  marry  an  English  lady  ;  and  could 
think  of  no  other  wife  than  Maud  the  Good,  the  daughter  of 
the  king  of  Scotland.  Although  this  good  princess  did  not 
love  the  king,  she  was  so  affected  by  the  representations  the 
nobles  made  to  her  of  the  great  charity  it  would  be  in  her  to 
unite  the  Norman  and  Saxon  races,  and  prevent  hatred  and 
bloodshed  between  them  for  the  future*,  that  she  consented  to 
become  his  wife.  After  some  disputing  among  the  priests,  who 
said  that  as  she  had  been  in  a  convent  in  her  youth,  and  had 
worn  the  veil  of  a  nun,  she  could  not  lawfully  be  married, — 
against  which  the  princess  stated  that  her  aunt,  with  whom  she 
had  lived  in  her  youth,  had  indeed  sometimes  thrown  a  piece 
of  black  stuff  over  her,  but  for  no  other  reason  than  because 
the  nun's  veil  was  the  only  dress  the  conquering  Normans  re- 
spected in  girl  or  woman,  and  not  because  she  had  taken  the 
vows  of  a  nun,  which  she  never  had, — she  was  declared  free  to 
marry,  and. was  made  King  Henry's  queen.  A  good  queen  she 
was, — beautiful,  kind-hearted,  and  worthy  of  a  better  husband 
than  the  king. 

For  he  was  a  cunning  and  unscrupulous  man,  though  firm 
and  clever.  He  cared  very  little  for  his  word,  and  took  any 
means  to  gain  his  ends.  AH  this  is  shown  in  his  treatment  of 
his  brother  Robert, — Robert,  who  had  suffered  him  to  be  re- 
freshed with  water,  and  who  had  sent  him  the  wine  from  his 
own  table,  when  he  was  shut  up,  with  the  crows  flying  below 
him,  parched  with  thirst,  in  the  castle  on  the  top  of  St.  Mi- 
chael's Mount,  where  his  Red  brother  would  have  let  him  die. 

Before  the  king  began  to  deal  with  Robert,  he  removed  and 
disgraced  all  the  favorites  of  the  late  king  ;  who  were  for  the 
most  part  base  characters,  much  detested  by  the  people.  Flam- 
bard,  or  Firebrand,  whom  the  late  king  had  made  Bishop  of 
Durham,  of  all  things  in  the  world,  Henry  imprisoned  in  the 
Tower  ;  but  Firebrand  was  a  great  joker  and  a  jolly  companion, 
and  made  himself  so  popular  with  his  guards,   that  they  pre- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIRST.  6 1 

tended  to  know  nothing  about  a  long  rope  that  was  sent  into 
his  prison  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  flagon  of  wine.  The  guards 
took  the  wine,  and  Firebrand  took  the  rope  ;  with  which,  when 
they  were  fast  asleep,  he  let  himself  down  from  a  window  in 
the  night,  and  so  got  cleverly  aboard  ship  and  away  to  Nor- 
mandy. 

Now  Robert,  when  his  brother,  Fine-Scholar  came  to  the 
throne,  was  still  absent  in  the  Holy  Land.  Henry  pretended 
that  Robert  had  been  made  sovereign  of  that  country,  and  he 
had  been  away  so  long,  that  the  ignorant  people  believed  it. 
But,  behold,  when  Henry  had  been  some  time  king  of  England, 
Robert  came  home  to  Normandy  1  having  leisurely  returned 
from  Jerusalem  through  Italy,  m  which  beautiful  country  he 
had  enjoyed  himself  very  much,  and  had  married  a  lady  as 
beautiful  as  itself.  In  Normandy,  he  found  Firebrand  waitin;]^ 
to  urge  him  to  assert  his  claim  to  the  English  crown,  and  de- 
clare war  against  King  Henry.  This  after  great  loss  of  time 
in  feasting  and  dancing  with  his  beautiful  Italian  wife  among 
his  Norman  friends,  he  at  last  did. 

The  English  in  general  were  on  King  Henry's  side  though 
many  of  the  Normans  were  on  Robert's.  But  the  English 
sailors  deserted  the  king,  and  took  a  great  part  of  the  English 
fleet  over  to  Normandy ;  so  that  Robert  came  to  invade  this 
country  in  no  foreign  vessels,  but  in  English  ships.  The  virtu- 
ous Anselm,  however,  whom  Henry  had  invited  back  from 
abroad,  and  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  was  steadfast  in 
the  king's  cause  ;  and  it  was  so  well  supported,  that  the  two 
armies,  instead'  of  fighting,  made  a  peace.  Poor  Robert,  who 
trusted  anybody  and  everybody,  readily  trusted  his  brother,  the 
king ;  and  agreed  to  go  home  and  receive  a  pension  from  Eng- 
land, on  condition  that  all  his  followers  were  fully  pardoned. 
This  the  king  very  faithfully  promised  ;  but  Robert  was  no 
sooner  gone  than  he  began  to  punish  them. 

Among  them  was  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  who,  on  being 
summoned  by  the  king  to  answer  to  five-and-forty  accusations, 
rode  away  to  one  of  his  strong  castles,  shut-himself  up  therein, 
called  around  him  his  tenants  and  vassals,  and  fought  for  his 
liberty,  but  was  defeated  and  banished.  Robert,  with  all  his 
faults,  was  so  true  to  his  word,  that,  when  he  first  heard  of  this 
nobleman  having  risen  against  his  brother,  he  laid  waste  the 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury's  estates  in  Normandy  to  show  the  king 
that  he  would  favor  no  breach  of  their  treaty.  Finding,  on 
better  information,  afterwards,  that  the  earl's  only  crime  was 
having  been  his  friend,  he  came  over  to  England,  in  his  old 


62  -^  C/f TLB'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

thoughtless,  warm-hearted  way,  to  intercede  with  the  king,  and 
remind  him  of  the  solemn  promise  to  pardon  all  his  followers. 

This  confidence  might  have  put  the  false  king  to  the  blush, 
but  it  did  not.  Pretending  to  be  very  friendly,  he  so  surrounded 
his  brother  with  spies  and  traps,  that  Robert,  who  was  quite  in 
his  power,  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  renounce  his  pension,  and 
escape  while  he  cou4d.  Getting  home  to  Normandy,  and  un' 
derstanding  the  king  better  now,  he  naturally  allied  himself 
with  his  old  friend  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  who  had  still  thirty 
castles  in  that  country.  This  is  exactly  what  Henry  wanted. 
He  immediately  declared  that  Robert  had  broken  the  treaty, 
and  next  year  invaded  Normandy. 

He  pretended  that  he  came  to  deliver  the  Normans  at  their 
own  request,  from  his  brother's  misrule.  There  is  reason  to 
fear  that  his  misrule  was  bad  enough ;  for  his  beautiful  wife 
had  died,  leaving  him  with  an  infant  son  ;  and  his  court  was 
again  so  careless,  dissipated,  and  ill-regulated,  that  it  was  said 
he  sometimes  lay  in  bed  of  a  day  for  want  of  clothes  to  put 
on, — his  attendants  having  stolen  all  his  dresses.  But  he 
headed  his  army  like  a  brave  prince  and  a  gallant  soldier,  though 
he  had  the  misfortune  to  be  taken  prisoner  by  King  Henry, 
with  four  hundred  of  his  knights.  Among  them  was  poor 
harmless  Edgar  Atheling  who  loved  Robert  well.  Edgar  was 
not  important  enough  to  be  severe  with.  The  King  afterwards 
gave  him  a  small  pension,  which  he  lived  upon  and  died  upon 
in  peace,  among  the  quiet  woods  and  fields  of  England. 

And  Robert, — poor,  kind  gerenous,  wasteful,  heedless 
Robert,  with  so  many  faults,  and  yet  with  virtues  that  might 
have  made  a  better  and  a  happier  man, — what  was  the  end  of 
him  ?  If  the  king  had  had  the  magnanimity  to  say  with  a  kind 
air,  "  Brother,  tell  me,  before  these  noblemen,  that  from  this 
time  you  will  be  my  faithful  follower  and  friend,  and  never  raise 
your  hand  against  me  or  my  forces  more,"  he  might  have 
trusted  Robert  to  the  death.  But  the  king  was  not  a  magnani- 
mous man.  He  sentenced  his  brother  to  be  confined  for  life 
in  one  of  the  royal  castles.  In  the  beginning  of  his  imprison- 
ment he  was  allowed  to  ride  out,  guarded  ;  but  he  one  day  broke 
away  from  his  guard  and  galloped  off.  He  had  the  evil  for- 
tune to  ride  into  a  swamp,  where  his  horse  stuck  fast  and  he 
was  taken.  When  the  king  heard  of  it  he  ordered  him  to  b« 
blinded,  which  was  done  by  putting  a  red-hot  metal  basin  oH 
his  eyes. 

And  so,  in  darkness  and  in  prison  many  years,  he  thought 
of  all  his  past  life, — of  the  time  he  had  wasted,  of  the  treas 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIRST.  63 

ure  he  had  squandered,  of  the  opportunities  he  had  lost,  of  the 
youth  he  had  thrown  away,  of  the  talents  he  had  neglected. 
Sometimes,  on  fine  autumn  mornings,  he  would  sit  and  think  of 
the  old  hunting  parties  in  the  free  forest,  where  he  had  been  the 
foremost  and  gayest.  Sometimes,  in  the  still  nights,  he  would 
wake,  and  mourn  for  the  many  nights  that  had  stolen  past  him 
at  the  gaming-table  ;  sometimes  would  seem  to  hear,  upon  the 
melancholy  wind,  the  old  songs  of  the  minstrels  ;  sometimes 
would  dream,  in  his  blindness,  of  the  light  and  glitter  of  the  Nor- 
man court.  Many  and  many  a  time,  he  groped  back,  in  his 
fancy,  to  Jerusalem,  where  he  had  fought  so  well ;  or,  at  the 
head  of  his  brave  companions,  bowed  his  feathered  helmet  to 
the  shouts  of  welcome  greeting  him  in  Italy,  and  seemed  again 
to  walk  among  the  sunny  vineyards,  or  on  the  shore  of  the  blue 
sea,  with  his  lovely  wife.  And  then,  thinking  of  her  grave,  and 
of  his  fatherless  boy,  he  would  stretch  out  his  solitary  arms  and 
weep. 

At  length,  one  day,  there  lay  in  prison,  dead,  with  cruel  and 
disfiguring  scars  upon  his  eyelids,  bandaged  from  his  jailer's 
sight,  but  on  which  the  eternal  heavens  looked  down,  a  worn 
old  man  of  eighty.  He  had  once  been  Robert  of  Normandy. 
Pity  him ! 

At  the  time  when  Robert  of  Normandy  was  taken  prisoner 
by  his  brother,  Robert's  little  son  was  only  five  years  old.  This 
child  was  taken  too,  and  carried  before  the  king,  sobbing  and 
crying ;  for,  young  as  he  was,  he  knew  he  had  good  reason  to 
be  afraid  of  his  royal  uncle.  The  king  was  not  much  accus- 
tomed to  pity  those  who  were  in  his  power,  but  his  cold  heart 
seemed  for  the  moment  to  soften  towards  the  boy.  He  was 
observed  to  make  a  great  effort,  as  if  to  prevent  himself  from 
being  cruel,  and  ordered  the  child  to  be  taken  away ;  where- 
upon a  certain  baron,  who  had  married  a  daughter  of  Duke 
Robert's  (by  name,  Helie  of  Saint  Saon),  took  charge  of  him 
tenderly.  The  king's  gentleness  did  not  last  long.  Before 
two  years  were  over,  he  sent  messengers  to  this  lord's  castle  to 
seize  the  child  and  bring  him  away;  The  baron  was  not  there 
at  the  time ;  but  his  servants  were  fahhful,  and  carried  the  boy 
off  in  his  sleep  and  hid  him.  When  the  baron  came  home  and 
was  told  what  the  king  had  done,  he  took  the  child  abroad, 
and  leading  him  by  the  hand,  went  from  king  to  king,  and  from 
court  to  court,  relating  how  the  child  had  a  claim  to  the  throne 
of  England,  and  how  his  uncle  the  king,  knowing  that  he  had 
had  that  claim,  would  have  murdered  him,  perhaps  but  for  his 
escape. 


64  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 

The  youth  and  innocence  of  the  pretty  little  William  Fitz- 
Robert  (for  that  was  his  name)  made  him  many  friends  at  that 
time.  When  he  became  a  young  man,  the  King  of  France, 
uniting  with  the  French  Counts  of  Anjou  and  Flanders,  sup- 
ported his  cause  against  the  King  of  England,  and  took  many 
of  the  king's  towns  and  castles  in  Normandy.  But  King  Henry, 
arttul  and  cunning  always,  bribed  some  of  William's  friends  with 
money,  some  \vith  promises,  some  with  power.  He  bought  off 
the  Count  of  Anjou,  by  promising  to  marry  his  eldest  son,  also, 
named  William,  to  the  count's  daughter ;  and  indeed  the  whole 
trust  of  this  king's  life  was  in  such  bargains ;  and  he  believed 
(as  many  another  king  has  done  since,  and  as  one  king  did  in 
France  a  very  little  time  ago)  that  every  man's  truth  and  honor 
can  be  bought  at  some  price.  For  all  this,  he  was  so  afraid 
of  William  Fitz-Robert  and  his  friends,  that  for  a  long  time  he 
believed  his  life  to  be  in  danger ;  and  never  lay  down  to  sleep, 
even  in  his  palace,  surrounded  by  his  guards,  without  having  a 
sword  and  buckler  at  his  bedside. 

To  strengthen  his  power,  the  king  with  great  ceremony 
betrothed  his  eldest  daughter,  Matilda,  then  a  child  only  eight 
years  old,  to  be  the  wife  of  Henry  the  Fifth,  the  Emperor  of 
Germany.  To  raise  her  marriage-portion,  he  taxed  the  English 
people  in  a  most  oppressive  manner  ;  then  treated  them  to  a 
great  procession,  to  restore  their  good  humor;  and  sent  Matilda 
away,  in  fine  state,  with  the  German  ambassadors,  to  be  edu- 
cated in  the  country  of  her  future  husband. 

And  now  his  queen,  Maud  the  Good,  unhappily  died.  It 
was  a  sad  thought  for  that  gentle  lady,  that  the  only  hope  with 
which  she  had  married  a  man  whom  she  had  never  Inved, — the 
hope  of  reconciling  the  Norman  and  English  races — haJ  failed. 
At  the  very  time  of  her  death,  Normandy  and  all  France  was  in 
arms  against  England  \  for,  so  soon  as  his  last  danger  was  over, 
King  Henry  had  been  false  to  all  the  French  powers  he  had 
promised,  bribed,  and  bought,  and  they  had  naturally  united 
against  him.  After  some  fighting,  however,  in  which  few  suf- 
fered but  the  unhappy  common  people  (who  always  suffered, 
whatsoever  was  the  matter),  he  began  to  promise,  bribe,  and 
buy  again  ;  and  by  those  means,  and  by  the  help  of  the  pope, 
who  exerted  himself  to  save  more  bloodshed,  and  by  solemnly 
declaring,  over  and  over  again,  that  he  really  was  in  earnest 
this  time,  and  would  keep  his  word,  the  king  made  peace. 

One  of  the  first  consequences  of  this  peace  was,  that  the 
king  went  over  to  Normandy  with  his  son  Prince  William  and 
a  great  retinue,  to  have  the  prince  acknowledged  as  his  suq- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HBKRY  THE  FIRST.  65 

cesser  by  the  Norman  nobles,  and  to  contract  the  promised 
marriage  (this  w^as  one  of  the  many  promises  the  king  had 
broken)  between  him  and  the  daughter  of  the  Count  of  Anjou. 
Both  these  things  were  triumphantly  done  with  great  show  and 
rejoicing;  and,  on  the  25th  of  November,  in  the  year  1120,  the 
whole  retinue  prepared  to  embark  at  the  Port  of  Barfleur,  for 
the  voyage  home. 

On  that  day,  and  at  that  place,  there  came  to  the  king,  Fitz- 
Stephen,  a  sea-captain,  and  said, — 

"  My  liege,  my  father  served  your  father  all  his  life,  upon 
the  sea.  He  steered  the  ship,  with  the  golden  boy  upon  the 
prow,  in  which  your  father  sailed  to  conquer  England.  I 
beseech  you  to  grant  me  the  same  office.  I  have  a  fair  vessel 
in  the  harbor  here,  called  '  The  White  Ship,'  manned  by  fifty 
sailors  of  renown.  I  pray  you,  sire,  to  let  your  servant  have 
the  honor  of  steering  you  in  '  The  White  Ship'  to  England  !  " 

"  I  am  sorry,  friend,"  replied  the  king,  "  that  my  vessel  is 
already  chosen,  and  that  I  cannot  (therefore)  sail  with  the  son 
of  the  man  who  served  my  father.  But  the  prince  and  all  his 
company  shall  go  along  with  you,  in  the  fair  '  White  Ship,' 
manned  by  the  fifty  sailors  of  renown." 

An  hour  or  two  afterwards,  the  king  set  sail  in  the  vessel  he 
had  chosen,  accompanied  by  other  vessels,  and,  sailing  all  night 
with  a  fair  and  gentle  wind,  arrived  upon  the  coast  to  England 
in  the  morning.  While  it  was  yet  night  the  people  in  some  of 
those  ships  heard  a  faint  wild  cry  come  over  the  sea,  and  won- 
dered what  it  was. 

Now  the  prince  was  a  dissolute,  debauched  young  man  of 
eighteen,  who  bore  no  love  to  the  English,  and  had  declared 
that  when  he  came  to  the  throne  he  would  yoke  them  to  the 
plough  like  oxen.  He  went  aboard  "  The  White  Ship,"  with 
one  hundred  and  forty  youthful  nobles  like  himself,  among 
whom  were  eighteen  noble  ladies  of  the  highest  rank.  All  this 
gay  company,  with  their  servants  and  the  fifty  sailors,  made 
three  hundred  souls  aboard  the  fair  "  White  Ship." 

"Give  three  casks  of  v.'ine,  Fitz-Stephen,"  said  the  prince, 
"  to  the  fifty  sailors  of  renown.  My  father,  the  king,  has  sailed 
out  of  the  harbor.  What  time  is  there  to  make  merry  here, 
and  yet  reach  England  with  the  rest  ? " 

"Prince,"  said  Fitz-Stephen,  "  before  morning  my  fifty  and 
*  The  White  Ship'  shall  overtake  the  swiftest  vessel  in  attend- 
ance on  your  father,  the  king,  if  we  sail  at  midnight ! " 

Then  the  prince  commanded  to  make  merry ;  and  the  sailors 
drank  out  the  three  casks  of  wine,  and  the  prince  and  all  the 


66  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

noble  company  danced  in  the  moonlight  on  the  deck  of  "  The 
White  Ship." 

When,  at  last,  she  shot  out  of  the  harbor  of  Barfleur,  there 
was  not  a  sober  seaman  on  board.  But  the  sails  were  all  set, 
and  the  oars  all  going  merrily.  Fitz-Stephen  had  the  helm. 
The  gay  young  nobles  and  the  beautiful  ladies  wrapped  in 
mantles  of  various  bright  colors  to  protect  them  from  the  cold, 
talked,  laughed,  and  sang.  The  prince  encouraged  the  fifty 
sailors  to  row  harder,  yet,  for  the  honor  of  **  The  White 
Ship." 

Crash  !  A  terrific  cry  broke  from  three  hundred  hearts.  It 
was  the  cry  the  people  in  the  distant  vessels  of  the  king  heard 
faintly  on  the  water.  "  The  White  Ship"  had  struck  upon  a 
rock, — was  filling, — going  down  ! 

Fitz-Stephen  hurried  the  prince  into  a  boat,  with  some  few 
nobles.  "  Push  off,"  he  whispered,  "  and  row  to  the  land. 
It  is  not  so  far,  and  the  sea  is  smooth.  The  rest  of  us  must 
die." 

But  as  they  rowed  away  fast  from  the  sinking  ship,  the  prince 
heard  the  voice  of  his  sister  Marie,  the  countess  of  Perche, 
calling  for  help.  He  never  in  his  life  had  been  so  good  as  he 
was  then.  He  cried  in  an  agony,  *'  Row  back  at  any  risk  !  I 
cannot  bear  to  leave  her  !  " 

They  rowed  back.  As  the  prince  held  out  his  arms  to  catch 
his  sister,  such  numbers  leaped  in,  that  the  boat  was  over- 
set.    And  in  the  same  instant  "  The  White  Ship  "  went  down. 

Only  two  men  floated.  They  both  clung  to  the  mainyard 
of -the  ship  which  had  broken  from  the  mast  and  now  supported 
them.  One  asked  the  other  who  he  was  ?  He  said,  "  I  am  a 
nobleman,  Godfrey  by  name,  the  son  of  Gilbert  de  I'Aigle. 
And  you  ?  "  said  he.  "  I  am  Berold,  a  poor  butcher  of  Rouen," 
was  the  answer.  Then  they  said  together,  "  Lord  be  merci- 
ful to  us  both  !  "  and  tried  to  encourage  one  another,  as  they 
drifted  in  the  cold  benumbing  sea  on  that  unfortunate  November 
night. 

By  and  by,  another  man  came  swimming  towards  them,whonj 
they  knew,  when  he  pushed  aside  his  long  wet  hair,  to  be  Fitz- 
Stephen.  "  Where  is  the  prince  ?  "  said  he.  "  Gone,  gone  !  '* 
the  two  cried  together.  "  Neither,  he,  nor  his  brother,  nor  his 
sister,  nor  the  king's  niece,  nor  her  brother,  nor  any  one  of  all 
the  brave  three  hundred,  noble  or  commoner,  except  we  three, 
has  risen  above  the  water  !  "  Fitz-Stephen,  with  a  ghastly  face, 
cried,  "  Woe  !  woe  to  me  !  "  and  sunk  to  the  bottom. 

The  other  two  clung  to  the  yard  for  some  hours.     At  length 


BNGl  4    J  tINDER  HENRY  THE  FIRST.  ^f 

the  young  noble  said  faintly,  "  I  am  exhausted  and  chilled  with 
the  cold,  and  can  hold  no  longer.  Farewell,  good  friend  !  God 
preserve  you  !  "  So  he  dropped  and  sunk ;  and,  of  all  the 
brilliant  crowd,  the  poor  butcher  of  Rouen  alone  was  saved.  In 
the  morning,  some  fishermen  saw  him  floating  in  his  sheep-skin 
coat,  and  got  him  into  their  boat, — the  sole  relater  of  the  dis- 
mal tale. 

For  three  days,  no  one  dared  to  carry  the  intelligence  to 
the  king.  At  length  they  sent  into  his  presence  a  little  boy, 
who,  weeping  bitterly,  and  kneeling  at  his  feet  told  him  that 
*'  The  White  Ship  "  was  lost  with  all  on  board.  The  king  fell 
to  the  ground  like  a  dead  man,  and  never,  never  afterwards  was 
seen  to  smile. 

But  he  plotted  again,  and  promised  again,  and  bribed  and 
bought  again,  in  his  old  deceitful  way.  Having  no  son  to  suc- 
ceed him,  after  all  his  pains  ("The  prince  will  never  yoke  us 
to  the  plough  now  !  "  said  the  English  people),  he  took  a  second 
wife, — Adelias,  or  Alice,  a  duke's  daughter,  and  the  pope's 
niece.  Having  no  more  children,  however,  he  proposed  to  the 
barons  to  swear  that  they  would  recognize  as  his  successor  his 
daughter  Matilda,  whom,  as  she  was  now  a  widow,  he  married 
to  the  eldest  son  of  the  count  of  Anjou,  Geoffrey,  surnamed 
Plantagenet,  from  a  custom  he  had  of  wearing  a  sprig  of  flower- 
ing broom  (called  genet  in  French)  in  his  cap  for  a  feather.  A« 
one  false  man  usually  makes  many,  and  as  a  false  king,  in  par- 
ticular, is  pretty  certain  to  make  a  false  court,  the  barons  tool< 
the  oath  about  the  succession  of  Matilda  (and  her  children  after 
her)  twice  over  without  in  the  least  intending  to  keep  it.  The 
king  was  now  relieved  from  any  remaining  fears  of  William 
Fitz-Robert,  by  his  death  in  the  Monastery  of  St.  Omer,  in 
France,  at  twenty-six  years  old,  of  a  pike-wound  in  the  hand. 
And,  as  Matilda  gave  birth  to  three  sons,  he  thought  the  succes- 
sion, to  the  throne  secure. 

He  spent  most  of  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  which  was 
troubled  by  family  quarrels,  in  Normandy,  to  be  near  Matilda. 
When  he  had  reigned  upwards  of  thirty-five  years,  and  was 
sixty-seven  years  old,  he  died  of  an  indigestion  and  fever, 
brought  on  by.  eating,  when  he  was  far  from  well,  of  a  fish  called 
lamprey,  against  which  he  had  often  been  cautioned  by  his  phy- 
sicians. His  remains  were  brought  over  to  Reading  Abbey, 
to  be  buried. 

You  may  perhaps  hear  cunning  and  promise-breaking  of 
King  Henry  the  First,  called  "policy"  by  some  people,  and 
"  diplomacy  "  by  others.     Neither  of  these  fine  words  will  in 


^o  A  C HILDAS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

the  least  mean  that  it  was  true  ;  and  nothing  that  is  not  true 
can  possibly  be  good. 

His  greatest  merit,  that  I  know  of,  was  his  love  of  learning 
I  should  have  given  him  greater  credit  even  for  that,  if  it  had 
been  strong  enough  to  induce  him  to  spare  the  eyes  of  a  certain 
poet  he  once  took  prisoner,  who  was  a  knight  besides.  But  he 
ordered  the  poet's  eyes  to  be  torn  from  his  head,  because  he 
had  laughed  at  him  in  his  verses  ;  and  the  poet  in  the  pain  of 
that  torture,  dashed  out  his  own  brains  against  his  prison  wall. 
King  Henry  the  First,  was  avaricious,  revengeful,  and  so  false 
that  I  suppose  a  man  never  lived  whose  word  was  less  to  be 
relied  upon. 


CHAPTER  XL 

ENGLAND    UNDER   MATILDA   AND   STEPHEN. 

The  king  was  no  sooner  dead,  than  all  the  plans  and 
schemes  he  had  labored  at  so  long,  and  lied  so  much  for, 
crumbled  away  like  a  hollow  heap  of  sand.  Stephen,  whom  he 
had  never  mistrusted  or  suspected,  started  up  to  claim  the 
throne. 

Stephen  was  the  sun  of  Adela,  the  Conqueror's  daughter, 
married  to  the  Count  of  Blois.  To  Stephen,  and  to  his  brother 
Henry,  the  late  king  had  been  liberal  ;  making  Henry  Bishop 
of  Winchester,  and  finding  a  good  marriage  for  Stephen,  and 
much  enriching  him.  This  did  not  prevent  Stephen  from 
hastily  producing  a  false  witness,  a  servant  of  the  late  king,  to 
swear  that  the  king  had  named  him  for  his  heir  upon  his  death- 
bed. On  this  evidence  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  crowned 
him.  The  new  king,  so  suddenly  made,  lost  not  a  moment  in 
seizing  the  royal  treasure,  and  hiring  foreign  soldiers  with  some 
of  it  to  protect  his  throne. 

If  the  dead  king  had  ever  done  as  the  false  witness  said, 
he  would  have  had  small  right  to  will  away  the  English  people, 
like  so  many  sheep  or  oxen,  without  their  consent.  But  he 
had,  in  fact,  bequeathed  all  his  territory  to  Matilda ;  who,  sup- 
ported by  Robert,  Earl  of  Gloucester,  soon  began  to  dispute 
the  crown.  Some  of  the  powerful  barons  and  priests  took  her 
side  ;  some  took  Stephen's ;  all  fortified  their  castles ;  and 
again  the  miserable  English  people  were  involved  in  war,  from 


ENGLAND  UNDER  MATILDA  AND  STEPHEN. 


69 


which  they  could  never  derive  advantage  whosoever  was  victo- 
rious, and  in  which  all  parties  plundered,  tortured,  starved,  and 
ruined  them. 

Five  years  had  passed  since  the  death  of  Henry  the  First, 
and  during  those  five  years  there  had  been  two  terrible  inva- 
sions by  the  people  of  Scotland  under  their  King  David,  who 
was  at  last  defeated  with  all  his  army, — when  Matilda,  attended 
by  her  brother  Robert,  and  a  large  force,  appeared  in  England 
to  maintain  her  claim.  A  battle  was  fought  between  her  troops 
and  King  Stephen's,  at  Lincoln  ;  in  which  the  king  himself  was 
taken  prisoner,  after  bravely  fighting  until  his  battle-axe  and 
sword  were  broken,  and  was  carried  into  strict  confinement  at 
Gloucester.  Matilda  then  submitted  herself  to  the  priests,  and 
the  priests  crowned  her  Queen  of  England. 

She  did  not  long  enjoy  this  dignity.  The  people  of  London 
had  a  great  affection  for  Stephen  ;  many  of  the  barons  consid- 
ered it  degrading  to  be  ruled  by  a  woman  ;  and  the  queen's 
temper  was  so  haughty  that  she  made  innumerable  enemies. 
The  people  of  London  revolted  ;  and  in  alliance  with  tlie  troops 
of  Stephen,  besieged  her  at  Winchester,  where  they  took  her 
brother  Robert  prisoner,  whom,  as  her  best  soldier  and  chief 
general,  she  was  glad  to  exchange  for  Stephen  himself,  who 
thus  regained  his  liberty.  Then  the  long  war  went  on  afresh. 
Once  she  was  pressed  so  hard  in  the  Castle  of  Oxford,  in  the 
winter  weather,  when  the  snow  lay  thick  upon  the  ground,  that 
her  only  chance  of  escape  was  to  dress  herself  all  in  white,  and 
accompanied  by  no  more  than  three  faithful  knights  dressed  in 
like  manner,  that  their  figures  might  not  be  seen  from  Ste- 
phen's camp  as  they  passed  over  the  snow,  to  steal  away  on 
foot,  cross  the  frozen  Thames,  walk  a  long  distance,  and  at  last 
gallop  away  on  horseback.  All  this  she  did,  but  to  no  great 
purpose  then  :  for,  her  brother  dying  while  the  struggle  was  yet 
going  on,  she  at  last  withdrew  to  Normandy. 

In  two  or  three  years  after  her  withdrawal  her  cause  ap- 
peared in  England  afresh,  in  the  person  of  her  son  Henry, 
young  Plantagenet,  who,  at  only  eighteen  years  of  age,  was  very 
powerful ;  not  only  on  account  of  his  mother  having  resigned  all 
Normandy  to  him,  but  also  from  his  having  married  Eleanor, 
the  divorced  wife  of  the  French  king,  a  bad  woman,  who 
had  great  possessions  in  France.  Louis,  the  French  king,  not 
relishing  this  arrangement,  helped  Eustace,  King  Stephen's 
son,  to  invade  Normandy ;  but  Henry  drove  their  united  forces 
out  of  that  country,  and  then  returned  here  to  assist  his  parti- 
sans, whom  the  king  was  then  besieging  at  Wallingford  upon 


?• 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


the  Thames.  Here  for  two  days,  divided  only  by  the  river,  the 
two  armies  lay  encamped  opposite  to  one  another, — on  the  eve, 
as  it  seemed  to  all  men,  of  another  desperate  fight,  when  the 
Earl  of  Arundel  took  heart,  and  said,  "that  it'was  not  reason- 
able to  prolong  the  unspeakable  miseries  of  two  kingdoms  to 
minister  to  the  ambition  of  two  princes." 

Many  other  noblemen,  repeating  and  supporting  this  when 
it  was  once  uttered,  Stephen  and  young  Plantagenet  went  down, 
each  to  his  own  bank  of  the  river,  and  held  a  conversation 
across  it,  in  which  they  arranged  a  truce  ;  very  much  to  the 
dissatisfaction  of  Eustace,  who  swaggered  away  with  some  fol- 
lowers, and  laid  violent  hands  on  the  Abbey  of  St.  Edmund's - 
Bury,  where  he  presently  died  mad.  The  truce  led  to  a  sol- 
emn council  at  Winchester,  in  which  it  was  agreed  that  Ste- 
phen should  retain  the  crown,  on  condition  of  his  declarmg 
Henry  his  successor  .  that  William,  another  son  of  the  king's, 
should  inherit  his  father's  rightful  possessions  ;  and  that  all  the 
crown  lands  which  Stephen  had  given  away  should  be  recalled, 
?\nd  all  the  castles  he  had  permitted  to  be  built  demolished. 
Thus  terminated  the  bitter  war,  which  had  now  lasted  fifteen 
years,  and  had  again  laid  England  waste.  In  the  next  year 
Stephen  died,  after  a  troubled  reign  of  nineteen  years. 

Although  King  Stephen  was,  for  the  time  in  which  he  lived 
a  humane  and  moderate  man,  with  many  excellent  qualities ; 
and  although  nothing  worse  is  known  of  him  than  his  usurpa- 
tion of  the  crown,  which  he  probably  excused  to  himself  by  the 
consideration  that  King  Henry  the  First  was  an  usurper  too, — 
which  was  no  excuse  at  all, — the  people  of  England  suffered 
more  in  these  dread  nineteen  years  than  at  any  former  period 
even  of  their  suffering  history.  In  the  division  of  the  nobility 
between  the  two  rival  claimants  of  the  crown,  and  in  the  growth 
of  what  is  called  the  Feudal  System  (which  made  the  peasants 
the  born  vassals  and  mere  slaves  of  the  barons),  every  noble 
had  his  strong  castle,  where  he  reigned  the  cruel  king  of  all  the 
neighboring  people.  Accordingly,  he  perpetrated  whatever 
cruelties  he  chose  ^  and  never  were  worse  cruelties  committed 
upon  earth  than  in  wretched  England  in  those  nineteen  years. 

The  writers  who  were  living  then  describe  them  fearfully. 
They  say  that  the  castles  were  filled  with  devils  rather  than 
with  men  ;  that  the  peasants,  men  and  women,  were  put  into 
dungeons  for  their  gold  and  silver,  were  tortured  with  fire  and 
smoke,  were  hung  up  by  the  thumbs,  were  hung  up  by  the  heels 
with  great  weights  to  their  heads,  were  torn  with  jagged  irons, 
killed  with  hunger,  broken  to  death  in  narrow  chests  filled  with 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND. 


7« 


sharp-pointed  stones,  murdered  in  countless  fiendish  ways.  In 
England  there  was  no  corn,  no  meat,  no  cheese,  no  butter,  there 
were  no  tilled  lands,  no  harvests.  Ashes  of  burnt  towns  and 
dreary  wastes  were  all  that  the  traveller,  fearful  of  the  robbers 
who  prowled  abroad  at  all  hours,  would  see  in  a  long  day's 
journey ;  and  from  sunrise  until  night  he  would  not  come  upon 
a  home. 

The  clergy  sometimes  suffered,  and  heavily  too,  from  pil- 
lage ;  but  many  of  them  had  castles  of  their  own,  and  fought 
in  helmet  and  armor  like  the  barons,  and  drew  lots  with  other 
fighting  men  for  their  share  of  booty.  The  Pope  (or  Bishop  of 
Rome),  on  King  Stephen's  resisting  his  ambition,  laid  England 
under  an  interdict  at  one  period  of  this  reign  ;  which  means  that 
he  allowed  no  service  to  be  performed  in  the  churches,  no 
couples  to  be  married,  no  bells  to  be  rung,  no  dead  bodies  to  be 
buried.  Any  man  having  the  power  to  refuse  these  things,  no 
matter  whether  he  were  called  a  pope  or  a  poulterer,  would  of 
course  have  the  power  of  afflicting  numbers  of  innocent  people. 
That  nothing  might  be  wanting  to  the  miseries  of  King  Ste- 
phen's time,  the  Pope  threw  in  this  contribution  to  the  public 
store, — not  very  like  the  widow's  contribution,  as  I  think,  when 
our  Saviour  sat  in  Jerusalem  over  against  the  treasury,  "  and 
she  threw  in  two  mites  which  make  a  farthing." 


CHAPTER  XII. 
england  under  henry  the  second. 
Part  the  First. 

Henry  Plantagenet,  when  he  was  but  twenty-one  years 
old,  quietly  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  England,  according  to 
his  agreement  made  with  the  late  king  at  Winchester.  Six 
weeks  after  Stephen's  death,  he  and  his  queen,  Eleanor,  were 
crowned  in  that  city  ;  into  which  they  rode  on  horseback  in 
great  state,  side  by  side,  amidst  much  shouting  and  rejoicing, 
and  clashing  of  music,  and  strewing  of  flowers. 

The  reign  of  King  Henry  the  Second  began  well.  The 
king  had  great  possessions,  and  (what  with  his  own  rights,  and 
♦hat  with  those  of  his  wife)  was  lord  of  one-third  part  of 


72 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


France.  He  was  a  young  man  of  vigor,  ability,  and  resolution, 
and  immediately  applied  himself  to  remove  some  of  the  evils 
which  had  arisen  in  the  last  unhappy  reign.  He  revoked  all 
the  grants  of  land  that  had  been  hastily  made  on  either  side 
during  the  late  struggles ;  he  obliged  numbers  of  disorderly 
soldiers  to  depart  from  England  ;  he  reclaimed  all  the  castles 
belonging  to  the  crown  ;  and  he  forced  the  wicked  nobles  to 
pull  down  their  own  castles  to  the  r^umber  of  eleven  hundred, 
in  which  such  dismal  cruelties  had  been  inflicted  on  the  people. 
The  king's  brother,  Geoffrey,  rose  against  him  in  France,  while 
he  was  so  well  employed,  and  rendered  it  necessary  for  him  to 
repair  to  that  country ;  where,  after  he  had  subdued  and  made 
a  friendly  arrangement  with  his  brother  (who  did  not  live  long), 
his  ambition  to  increase  his  possessions  involved  him  in  a  war 
with  the  French  king,  Louis,  with  whom  he  had  been  on  such 
friendly  terms,  just  before,  that,  to  the  French  king's  infant 
daughter,  then  a  baby  in  the  cradle,  he  had  promised  one  of 
his  little  sons  in  marriage,  who  was  a  child  of  five  years  old. 
However,  the  war  came  to  nothing  at  last,  and  the  Pope  made 
the  two  kmgs  friends  again. 

Now  the  clergy  in  the  troubles  of  the  last  reign  had  gone 
on  very  ill  indeed.  There  were  all  kinds  of  criminals  among 
them, — murderers,  thieves,  and  vagabonds ;  and  the  worst  of 
the  matter  was,  that  the  good  priests  would  not  give  up  the  bad 
priests  to  justice  when  they  committed  crimes,  but  persisted  in 
sheltering  and  defending  them.  The  king,  well  knowing  that 
there  could  be  no  peace  or  rest  in  England  while  such  things 
lasted,  resolved  to  reduce  the  power  of  the  clergy,  and,  when 
he  had  reigned  seven  years,  found  (as  he  considered)  a  good 
opportunity  for  doing  so  in  the  death  of  the  Archbishop  of  Can 
terbury.  "  I  will  have  for  the  new  Archbishop,"  thought  the 
king,  "  a  friend  in  whom  I  can  trust,  who  will  help  me  to  hum- 
ble these  rebellious  priests,  and  have  them  dealt  with  when 
they  do  wrong  as  other  men  who  do  wrong  are  dealt  with."  So 
he  resolved  to  make  his  favorite  the  new  archbishop  ;  and  this 
favorite  was  so  extraordinary  a  man,  and  his  story  is  so  curious, 
that  I  must  tell  you  all  about  him. 

Once  upon  a  time  a  worthy  merchant  of  London,  named 
Gilbert  k  Becket,  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land,  and  was 
taken  prisoner  by  a  Saracen  lord.  This  lord,  who  treated  him 
kindly,  and  not  like  a  slave,  had  one  fair  daughter,  who  fell  in 
love  with  the  merchant,  and  who  told  him  that  she  wanted  to 
become  a  Christian,  and  was  willing  to  marry  him  if  they  could 
fly  to  a  Christian  country.     The  merchant  returned  her  love 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND.  73 

tintil  he  found  an  opportunity  to  escape,  when  he  did  not 
trouble  himself  about  the  Saracen  lady,  hut  escaped  with  his 
servant  Richard,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  along  with  him, 
and  arrived  in  England  and  forgot  her.  The  Saracen  lady, 
who  was  more  loving  than  the  merchant,  left  her  father's  house 
in  disguise  to  follow  him,  and  made  her  way  under  many  hard- 
ships to  the  sea-shore.  The  merchant  had  taught  her  only  two 
English  words  [iox  I  suppose  he  must  have  learnt  the  Saracen 
tongue  himself,  and  made  love  in  that  language),  of  which 
London  was  one,  and  his  own  name,  Gilbert,  the  other.  She 
went  among  the  shi^DS,  saying,  "  London,  London  !  "  over  and 
over  again,  until  the  sailors  understood  that  she  wanted  to 
to  find  an  English  vessel  that  would  carry  her  there  ;  so  they 
showed  her  such  a  ship,  and  she  paid  for  her  passage  with 
some  of  her  jewels,  and  sailed  away.  Well,  the  merchant  was 
sitting  in  his  counting-house  in  London  one  day,  when  he 
heard  a  great  noise  in  the  street,  and  presently  Richard  came 
running  in  from  the  warehouse,  with  his  eyes  wide  open  and 
his  breath  almost  gone,  saying,  "  Master,  master,  here  is  the 
Saracen  lady  !  "  The  merchant  thought  Richard  was  mad  ; 
but  Richard  said,  "  No,  master ;  as  I  live,  the  Saracen  lady 
is  going  up  and  down  the  city,  calling  '  Gilbert !  '  "  Then  he 
took  the  merchant  by  the  sleeve,  and  pointed  out  at  window  ; 
and  there  they  saw  her  among  the  gables  and  water-spouts  of 
the  dark,  dirty  street,  in  her  foreign  dress,  so  forlorn,  sur- 
rounded by  a  wondering  crowd,  and  passing  slowly  along, 
calling  Gilbert,  Gilbert !  "  When  the  merchant  saw  her  and 
thought  of  the  tenderness  she  had  shown  him  in  his  captivity 
and  of  her  constancy,  his  heart  was  moved,  and  he  ran  down 
into  the  street ;  and  she  saw  him  coming,  and  with  a  great  cry 
fainted  in  his  arms.  They  were  married  without  loss  of  time, 
and  Richard  (who  was  an  excellent  man)  danced  with  joy  the 
whole  day  of  the  svedding  ;  and  they  all  lived  happy  ever  after- 
wards. 

This  merchant  and  this  Saracen  lady  had  one  son,  Thomas 
\  Becket.  He  it  was  who  became  the  favorite  of  king  Henry 
the  Second. 

He  had  become  chancellor,  when  the  king  thought  of  mak- 
ing him  archbishop.  He  was  clever,  gay,  well  educated,  brave  ; 
had  fought  in  several  battles  in  France  ;  had  defeated  a  French 
knight  in  single  combat,  and  brought  his  horse  away  as  a  token  of 
the  victory.  He  lived  in  a  noble  palace,  he  was  the  tutor  of  the 
young  Prince  Henry,  he  was  served  by  one  hundred  and  forty 
knights,  his  riches  were  immense.     The  king  once  sent  him  as 


74  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

his  ambassador  to  France ;  and  the  French  people  beholding 
in  what  state  he  travelled,  cried  out  in  the  streets,  "  How 
splendid  must  the  king  of  England  be,  when  this  is  only  the 
chancellor  !  "  They  had  good  reason  to  wonder  at  the  mag- 
nificence of  Thomas  a  Becket :  for  when  he  entered  a  French 
town,  his  procession  was  headed  by  two  hundred  and  fifty 
singing  boys  ;  then  came  his  hounds  in  couples  ;  then  eight 
wagons,  each  drawn  by  five  horses,  driven  by  five  drivers  j 
two  of  the  wagons  filled  with  strong  ale  to  be  given  away  to 
the  people ;  four  with  his  gold  and  silver  plate  and  stately 
clothes  ;  two  with  the  dresses  of  his  numerous  servants,  Then 
came  twelve  horses,  each  with  a  monkey  on  his  back  ;  then  a 
train  of  people  bearing  shields,  and  leading  fine  war-horses, 
splendidly  equipped  ;  then  falconers  with  hawks  upon  their 
wrists  ;  then  a  host  of  knights  and  gentlemen  and  priests  ;  then 
the  chancellor,  with  his  brilliant  garments  flashing  in  the  sun, 
and  all  the  people  capering  and  shouting  with  delight. 

The  king  was  well  pleased  with  all  this,  thinking  that  it 
only  made  himself  the  more  magnificent  to  have  so  magnificent 
a  favorite  ;  but  he  sometimes  jested  with  the  chancellor  upon 
his  splendor  too.  Once  when  they  were  riding  together 
through  the  streets  of  London  in  hard  winter  weather,  they 
saw  a  shivering  old  man  in  rags.  "  Look  at  the  poor  object," 
said  the  king.  "  Would  it  not  be  a  charitable  act  to  give  that 
aged  man  a  comfortable  warm  cloak  ?  "  "  Undoubtedly  it 
would,"  said  Thomas  k  Becket ;  "  and  you  do  well,  sir,  to 
think  of  such  Christian  duties."  "  Come,"  cried  the  king,  give 
him  your  cloak  !  "  It  was  made  of  rich  crimson  trimmed 
with  ermine.  The  king  tried  to  pull  it  off ;  the  chancellor 
tried  to  keep  it  on.  Both  were  near  rolling  from  their  saddles 
in  the  mud,  when  the  chancellor  submitted  and  the  king  gave 
the  cloak  to  the  old  beggar  much  to  the  beggar's  astonishment, 
and  much  to  the  merriment  of  all  the  courtiers  in  attendance  ; 
for  courtiers  are  not  only  eager  to  laugh  when  the  king  laughs, 
but  they  really  do  enjoy  a  laugh  against  a  favorite. 

"  I  will  make,"  thought  King  Henry  the  Second,  "  this 
chancellor  of  mine,  Thomas  a  Becket,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury. He  will  then  be  the  head  of  the  Church,  and,  being  de- 
voted to  me,  will  help  me  to  correct  the  Church.  He  has  al- 
ways upheld  my  power  against  the  power  of  the  clergy,  and 
once  publicly  told  some  bishops  (I  remember)  that  men  of  the 
Church  were  equally  bound  to  me  with  men  of  the  sword. 
Thomas  \  Becket  is  the  man,  of  all  other  men  in  England,  to 
help  me  in  my  great  design."     So  the  king,  regardless  of  all 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND. 


75 


objection,  either  that  he  was  a  fighting  man,  or  a  lavish  man, 
or  a  courtly  man,  or  a  man  of  pleasure,  or  anything  but  a  likely 
man  for  the  office,  made  him  archbishop  accordingly. 

Now,  Thomas  k  Becket  was  proud,  and  loved  to  be  famous. 
He  was  already  famous  for  the  pomp  of  his  life, — for  his  riches, 
his  gold  and  silver  plate,  his  wagons,  horses,  and  attendants. 
He  could  do  no  more  in  that  way  that  he  had  done  ;  and,  being 
tired  of  that  kind  of  fame  (which  is  a  poor  one),  he  longed  to 
have  his  name  celebrated  for  something  else.  Nothing,  he  knew, 
would  render  him  so  famous  in  the  world  as  the  setting  of  his 
utmost  power  and  ability  against  the  utmost  power  and  ability 
of  the  king.  He  resolved  with  the  whole  strength  of  his  mind 
to  do  it. 

He  may  have  had  some  secret  grudge  against  the  king  be- 
sides. The  king  may  have  offended  his  proud  humor  at  some 
time  or  other,  for  anything  I  know.  I  think  it  likely,  because 
it  is  a  common  thing  for  kings,  princes,  and  other  great  people, 
to  try  the  tempers  of  their  favorites  rather  severely.  Even  the 
little  affair  of  the  crimson  cloak  must  have  been  anything  but  a 
pleasant  one  to  a  haughty  man.  Thomas  a  Becket  knew  better 
than  any  one  in  England  what  the  king  expected  of  him.  In 
all  his  sumptuous  life,  he  had  never  yet  been  in  a  position  to 
disappoint  the  king.  He  could  take  up  that  proud  stand  now, 
as  head  of  the  Church  ;  and  he  determined  that  it  should  be 
written  in  history,  either  that  he  subdued  the  king,  or  that  the 
king  subdued  him. 

So  of  a  sudden  he  completely  altered  the  whole  manner  of 
his  life.  He  turned  off  all  his  brilliant  followers,  ate  coarse 
food,  drank  bitter  water,  wore  next  his  skin  sackcloth  covered 
with  dirt  and  vermin  (for  it  was  then  thought  very  religious  to 
be  very  dirty),  flogged  his  back  to  punish  himself,  lived  chiefly 
in  a  little  cell,  washed  the  feet  of  thirteen  poor  people  every 
day,  and  looked  as  miserable  as  he  possibly  could.  If  he  had 
put  twelve  hundred  monkeys  on  horseback  instead  of  twelve, 
and  had  gone  in  procession  with  eight  thousand  wagons  instead 
of  eight,  he  could  not  have  half  astonished  the  people  so  much 
as  by  this  great  change.  It  soon  caused  him  to  be  more  talked 
about  as  an  archbishop  than  he  had  been  as  a  chancellor. 

The  king  was  very  angry ;  and  was  made  still  more  so,  when 
the  new  archbishop,  claiming  various  estates  from  the  nobles  as 
being  rightfully  church  property,  required  the  king  himself,  for 
the  same  reason,  to  give  up  Rochester  Castle,  and  Rochester 
City  too.  Not  satisfied  with  this,  he  declared  that  no  power 
but  himself  should  appoint  a  priest  to  any  church  in  the  part  of 


j^  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

England  over  which  he  was  archbishop,  and  when  a  certain 
gentleman  of  K  nt  made  such  an  appointment,  as  he  claimed 
to  have  a  right  to  do,  Thomas  a  Eecket  excommunicated 
him. 

Excommunication  was,  next  to  the  interdict  I  told  you  of  at 
the  close  of  the  IctSt  chapter,  the  great  weapon  of  the  clergy.  It 
consisted  in  declaring  the  person  who  was  excommunicated  an 
outcast  from  the  church  and  from  all  religious  offices  ;  and  in 
cursing  him  all  over,  from  the  top  of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his 
foot,  whether  he  was  standing  up,  lying  down,  sitting,  kneeling, 
walking,  running,  hopping,  jumping,  gaping,  coughing,  sneezing, 
or  whatever  else  he  was  doing.  This  unchristian  nonsense 
would  of  course  have  made  no  sort  of  difference  to  the  person 
cursed, — who  could  say  his  prayers  at  home  if  he  were  shut  out 
of  church,  and  whom  none  but  God  could  judge, — but  for  the 
fears  and  superstitions  of  the  people,  who  avoided  excommuni- 
cated persons,  and  made  their  lives  unhappy.  So  the  king  said 
to  the  new  archbishop,  "  Take  off  this  excommunication  from 
this  gentleman  of  Kent  \ "  to  which  the  archbishop  replied,  "  I 
shall  do  no  such  thing." 

The  quarrel  went  on.  A  priest  in  Worcestershire  committed 
a  most  dreadful  murder  that  aroused  the  horror  of  the  whole 
nation.  The  king  demanded  to  have  this  wretch  delivered  up, 
to  be  tried  in  the  same  court  and  in  the  same  way  as  any  other 
murderer.  The  archbishop  refused,  and  kept  him  in  the  bishop's 
prison.  The  king,  holding  a  solemn  assembly  in  Westminster 
Hall,  demanded  that  in  future  all  priests  found  guilty  before 
their  bishops  of  crimes  against  the  law  of  the  land,  should  be 
considered  priests  no  longer,  and  should  be  delivered  over  to 
the  law  of  the  land  for  punishment.  The  archbishop  again  re- 
fused. The  king  required  to  know  whether  the  clergy  would 
obey  the  ancient  customs  of  the  country  ?  Every  priest  there, 
but  one,  said,  after  Thomas  k  Becket,  "  Saving  my  order.' 
This  really  meant  that  they  would  only  obey  those  customs 
when  they  did  not  interfere  with  their  own  claims  ;  and  the  king 
went  out  of  the  hall  in  great  wrath. 

Some  of  the  clergy  began  to  be  afraid,  now,  that  they  were 
going  too  far.  Though  Thomas  a  Becket  was  otherwise  as  un- 
moved as  Westminster  Hall,  they  prevailed  upon  him,  for  the 
sake  of  their  fears,  to  go  to  the  king  at  Woodstock,  and  promise 
to  observe  the  ancient  customs  of  the  country,  without  saying 
anything  about  his  order.  The  king  received  this  submission 
favorably,  and  summoned  a  great  council  of  the  clergy  to  meet 
at  the  Castle  of  Clarendon,  by  Salisbury.     But  when  the  council 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND. 


11 


met,  the  archbishop  again  insisted  on  the  words,  *^  saving  my 
order ; "  and  he  still  insisted,  though  lords  entreated  him,  and 
priests  wept  before  him  and  knelt  to  him,  and  an  adjoining 
room  was  thrown  open,  filled  with  armed  soldiers  of  the  king, 
to  threaten  him.  At  length  he  gave  way,  for  that  time  ;  and 
the  ancient  customs  (which  included  what  the  king  had  demanded 
in  vain)  were  stated  in  writing,  and  were  signed  and  sealed  by 
the  chief  of  the  clergy,  and  were  called  the  Constitutions  of 
Clarendon. 

The  quarrel  went  on,  for  all  that.  The  archbishop  tried  lo 
see  the  king.  The  king  would  not  see  him.  The  archbishop 
tried  to  escape  from  England.  The  sailors  on  the  coast  would 
launch  no  boat  to  take  him  away.  Then  he  again  resolved  to 
do  his  worst  in  opposition  to  the  king,  and  began  openly  to  set 
the  ancient  customs  at  defiance. 

The  king  summoned  him  before  a  great  council  at  North- 
ampton, where  he  accused  him  of  high  treason,  and  made  a 
claim  against  him,  which  was  not  a  just  one,  for  an  enoromous 
sum  of  money.  Thomas  a  Becket  was  alone  against  the  whole 
assembly  ;  and  the  very  bishops  advised  him  to  resign  his  office, 
and  abandon  his  contest  with  the  king.  His  great  anxiety  and 
agitation  stretched  him  on  a  sick  bed  for  two  days,  but  he  was 
still  undaunted.  He  went  to  the  adjourned  council,  carrying  a 
great  cross  in  his  right  hand,  and  sat  down,  holding  it  erect 
before  him.  The  king  angrily  retired  into  an  inner  room.  The 
whole  assembly  angrily  retired,  and  left  him  there  ;  but  there  he 
sat.  The  bishops  came  out  again  in  a  body,  and  renounced  him 
as  a  traitor.  He  only  said,  "  I  hear  ! "  and  sat  there  still.  They 
retired  again  into  an  inner  room,  and  his  trial  proceeded  with- 
out him.  By  and  by,  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  heading  the  barons, 
came  out  to  read  his  sentence.  He  refused  to  hear  it,  denied 
the  power  of  the  court,  and  said  he  would  refer  his  cause  to  the 
pope.  As  he  walked  out  of  the  hall,  with  the  cross  in  his  hand, 
some  of  those  present  picked  up  rushes, — rushes  were  strewn 
upon  the  floors  in  those  days  by  way  of  carpet, — and  threw  them 
at  him.  He  proudly  turned  his  head,  and  said  that,  were  he 
not  archbishop,  he  would  chastise  those  cowards  with  the  sword 
he  had  known  how  to  use  in  bygone  days.  He  then  mounted 
his  horse,  and  rOde  away,  cheered  and  surrounded  by  the  com- 
mon people,  to  whom  he  threw  open  his  house  that  night  and 
gave  a  supper,  supping  with  them  himself.  That  same  night  he 
secretly  departed  from  the  town  ;  and  so,  travelling  by  night  and 
hiding  by  day,  and  calling  himself  "  Brother  Dearman,"  got 
away,  not  without  difficulty,  to  Flanders. 


yS  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

The  struggle  still  went  on.  The  angry  king  took  possession 
of  the  revenues  of  the  archbishopric,  and  banished  all  the  re- 
lations and  servants  of  Thomas  a  Becket,  to  the  number  of 
four  hundred.  The  pope  and  the  French  king  both  protected 
him,  and  an  abbey  was  assigned  for  his  residence.  Stimulated 
by  this  support,  Thomas  a  Becket,  on  a  great  festival  day, 
formally  proceeded  to  a  great  church  crowded  with  people, 
j.iid  going  up  into  the  pulpit,  publicly  cursed  and  excom- 
municated all  who  had  supported  the  Constitutions  of  Claren- 
tlon,  mentioning  many  English  noblemen  by  name,  and  not 
distantly  hinting  at  the  king  of  England  himself. 

When  intelligence  of  this  new  affront  was  carried  to  the  king 
in  his  chamber,  his  passion  was  so  furious,  that  he  tore  his 
clothes,  and  rolled  like  a  madman  on  his  bed  of  straw  and 
rushes.  But  he  was  soon  up  and  doing.  He  ordered  all  the 
ports  and  coasts  of  England  to  be  narrowly  watched,  that  no 
letters  of  interdict  might  be  brought  into  the  kingdom;  and 
sent  messengers  and  bribes  to  the  pope's  palace  at  Rome. 
Meanwhile,  Thomas  a  Becket,  for  his  part,  was  not  idle  at 
Rome,  but  constantly  employed  his  utmost  arts  in  his  own 
behalf.  Thus  the  contest  stood,  until  there  was  peace  between 
France  and  England  (which  had  been  for  some  time  at  war), 
and  until  the  two  children  of  the  two  kings  were  married  in 
celebration  of  it.  Then  the  French  King  brought  about  a 
meeting  between  Henry  and  his  old  favorite,  so  longhis  enemy. 

Even  then,  though  Thomas  a  Becket  knelt  before  the  king, 
he  was  obstinate  and  immovable  as  to  those  words  about  his 
order.  King  Louis  of  France  was  weak  enough  in  his  venera- 
tion for  Thomas  a  Becket;  and  such  men  ;  but  this  was  a  little 
too  much  for  him.  He  said  that  a  Becket  *' wanted  to  be 
greater  than  the  saints,  and  better  than  St.  Peter,"  and  rode 
away  from  him  with  the  King  of  England.  His  poor  French 
Majesty  asked  a  Becket's  pardon  for  so  doing,  however,  soon 
afterwards,  and  cut  a  very  pitiful  figure. 

At  last,  and  after  a  world  of  trouble,  it  came  to  this.  There 
was  another  meeting  on  French  ground  between  King  Henry 
and  Thomas  a  Becket;  and  it  was  agreed  that  Thomas  a 
Becket  should  be  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  according  to 
the  customs  of  former  archbishops,  and  that  the  king  should 
put  him  in  possession  of  the  revenues  of  that  post.  And 
now,  indeed,  you  might  suj  pose  the  struggle  at  an  end, 
and  Thomas  a  Becket  at  rest.  No,  not  even  yet ;  foi 
Thomas  a  Becket  hearing,  by  some  means,  that  King 
Henry,  when  he  was  in  dread  of  his  kingdom  being 
placed  under   an   interdict,  he  had  his  eldest  son,   Prince 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND. 


79 


Henry,  secretly  crowned,  not  only  persuaded  the  pope  to  sus' 
pend  the  Archbishop  of  York,  who  had  performed  that  cere- 
mony, and  to  excommunicate  the  bishops,  who  had  assisted  at 
it,  but  sent  a  messenger  of  his  own  into  England,  in  spite  of  all 
the  king's  precautions  along  the  coast,  who  delivered  the  letters 
of  excommunication  into  the  bishop's  own  hands.  Thomas  k 
Becket  then  came  over  to  England  himself,  after  an  absence  of 
seven  years.  He  was  privately  warned  tha-t  it  was  dangerous  to 
come,  and  that  an  ireful  knight,  named  Ranulf  de  Broc,  had 
threatened  that  he  should  not  live  to  eat  a  loaf  of  bread  in 
England  ;  but  he  came. 

The  common  people  received  him  well,  and  marched  about 
with  him  in  a  soldierly  way,  armed  with  such  rustic  weapons  as 
they  could  get.  He  tried  to  see  the  young  prince  who  had  once 
been  his  pupil,  but  was  prevented.  He  hoped  for  some  little 
support  among  the  nobles  and  priests,  but  found  none.  He 
made  the  most  of  the  peasants  who  attended  him,  and  feasted 
them,  and  went  from  Canterbury  to  Harrow-on-the-Hill,  and 
from  Harrow-on-the-Hill  back  to  Canterbury,  and  on  Christmas 
Day  preached  in  the  cathedral  there,  ^nd  told  the  people  in  his 
sermon  that  he  had  come  t»  die  amo-ng  them,  and  that  it  was 
likely  he  would  be  murdered.  He  had  no  fear,  however,  or,  if 
he  had  any  he  had  much  more  obstinacy  ;  for  he,  then  and  there 
excommunicated  three  of  his  enemies,  of  whom  Ranulf  de  Broc 
the  ireful  knight,  was  one. 

As  men  in  general  had  no  fancy  for  being  cursed,  in  their 
sitting  and  walking,  and  gaping  and  sneezing,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it,  it  was  very  natural  in  the  persons  so  freely  excommunicated 
to  complain  to  the  king.  It  was  equally  natural  in  the  king, 
who  had  hoped  that  this  troublesome  opponent  was  at  last 
quieted,  to  fall  into  a  mighty  rage  when  he  heard  of  these  new 
affronts ;  and,  on  the  Archbishop  of  York  telling  him  that  he 
never  could  hope  for  rest  while  Thomas  a  Becket  lived,  to  cry 
out  hastily  before  his  court,  "  Have  I  no  one  here  who  will 
deliver  me  from  this  man  ? "  There  were  four  knights  present 
who,  hearing  the  king's  words,  looked  at  one  another,  and  went 
out. 

The  names  of  these  knights  were  Reginald  Fitzurse,  William 
Tracy,  Hugh  de  Morville,  and  Richard  Brito ;  three  of  whom 
had  been  in  the  train  of  Thomas  k  Becket  in  the  old  days  of  his 
splendor.  They  rode  away  on  horseback,  in  a  very  secret  man- 
ner, and  on  the  third  day  after  Christmas  Day  arrived  at  Salt- 
wood  House,  not  far  from  Canterbury,  which  belonged  to  the 
family  of  Ranulf  de  Broc.  They  quietly  collected  some  followers 


So  A  CHILD' ii  HISTORY  OF  ENGLaNB, 

here,  in  case  they  should  need  any  ;  and,  proceeding  to  Canter- 
bury, suddenly  appeared  (the  four  knights  and  twelve  men)  be- 
fore the  archbishop,  in  his  own  house,  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon.  They  neither  bowed  nor  spoke,  but  sat  down  on  the 
floor  in  silence,  staring  at  the  archbishop. 

Thomas  a  Becket  said,  at  length,  "  What  do  you  want  ?  " 

"  We  want,"  said  Reginald  Fitzurse,  "  the  excommunication 
taken  from  the  bishops,  and  you  to  answer  for  your  offences  to 
the  king." 

Thomas  a  Becket  defiantly  replied,  that  the  power  of  the 
clergy  was  above  the  power  of  the  king  ;  that  it  was  not  for  such 
men  as  they  were  to  threaten  him ;  that,  if  he  were  threatened 
by  all  the  swords  in  England,  he  would  never  yield. 

"  Then  we  will  do  more  than  threaten  !  "  said  the  knights. 
And  they  went  out  with  the  twelve  men,  and  put  on  their  armor, 
^nd  drew  their  shining  swords,  and  came  back. 

His  servants,  in  the  mean  time,  had  shut  up  and  barred  the 
^eat  gate  of  the  palace.  At  first,  the  knights  tried  to  shatter 
it  with  their  battle-axes;  but,  being  shown  a  window  by  which 
they  could  enter,  they  let  the  gate  alone,  and  climbed  in  tha^ 
way.  While  they  were  battering  at  the  door,  the  attendants  o' 
Thomas  a  Becket  had  implored  him  to  take  refuge  in  the 
cathedral  •  in  which,  as  a  sanctuary  or  sacred  place,  they 
thought  the  knights  would  dare  to  do  no  violent  deed.  He  told 
them,  again  and  again,  that  he  would  not  stir.  Hearing  the 
distant  voices  of  the  monks  singing  the  evening  service,  how- 
ever, he  said  it  was  now  his  duty  to  attend  ;  and  therefore,  and 
for  no  other  reason,  he  would  go. 

There  was  a  near  way  between  liis  palace  and  the  cathedral 
by  some  beautiful  oM  cloisters  which  you  may  yet  see.  He 
went  into  the  cathedral  without  any  hurry,  and  having  the  cross 
carried  before  him  as  usual.  When  he  was  safely  there,  his 
servants  would  have  fastened  the  door,  but  he  said.  No  ;  it  was 
the  house  of  God,  and  not  a  fortress. 

As  he  spoke,  the  shadow  of  Reginald  Fitzurse  appeared  in 
the  cathedral  doorway,  darkening  the  little  light  there  was  out- 
side on  the  dark  winter  evening.  This  knight  said,  in  a  strong 
voice,  "  Follow  me,  loyal  servants  of  the  king  !  "  The  rattle  of 
the  armor  of  the  other  knights  echoed  through  the  cathedral  as, 
they  came  clashing  in. 

It  was  so  dark  in  the  lofty  aisles  and  among  the  stately  pil- 
lars of  the  church,  and  there  were  so  many  hiding-places  in  the 
crypt  below  and  in  the  narrow  passages  above,  that  Thomas  \ 
Becket  might  even  at  that  pass  hav^  saved  himself  if  he  would 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENR  V  THE  SECOND,  %  | 

But  he  would  not.  He  told  the  monks  resolutely  that  he  would 
not.  And  though  they  all  dispersed,  and  left  him  there  with 
no  other  follower  than  Edward  Gryme,  his  faithful  cross-bearer, 
he  was  as  firm  then  as  ever  he  had  been  in  his  life, 

The  knights  came  on  through  the  darkness,  making  a  ter- 
rible noise  with  their  armed  tread  upon  the  stone  pavement  of 
the  church.  *'  Where  is  the  traitor  1  "  they  cried  out.  He  made 
no  answer.  But  when  they  cried,  "  Where  is  the  archbishop  ?  " 
he  said,  proudly,  "  I  am  here  !  "  and  came  out  of  the  shade,  and 
stood  before  them. 

The  knights  had  no  desire  to  kill  him,  if  they  could  rid  the 
king  and  themselves  of  him  by  any  other  means.  They  told 
him  he  must  either  fly  or  go  with  them.  He  said  he  would  do 
neither ;  and  he  threw  William  Tracy  off  with  such  force,  when 
he  took  hold  of  his  sleeve,  that  Tracy  reeled  again.  By  his  re- 
proaches and  his  steadiness,  he  so  incensed  them,  and  exasper- 
ated their  fierce  humor,  that  Reginald  Fitzurse,  whom  he  called 
by  an  ill  name,  said  "  Then  die  !  "  and  struck  at  his  head.  But 
the  faithful  Edward  Gryme  put  out  his  arm,  and  there  received 
the  main  force  of  the  blow,  so  that  it  only  made  his  master 
bleed.  Another  voice  from  among  the  knights  again  called  to 
Thomas  a  Becket  to  fly  ;  but  with  his  blood  running  down  his 
face,  and  his  hands  clasped,  and  his  head  bent,  he  commended 
himself  to  God,  and  stood  firm.  Then  they  cruelly  killed  him, 
close  to  the  altar  of  St.  Bennet  ;  and  his  body  fell  upon  the 
pavement,  which  was  dirtied  with  his  blood  and  brains. 

It  was  an  awful  thing  to  think  of  the  murdered  mortal,  who 
had  so  showered  his  curses  about,  lying  all  disfigured  in  the 
church,  where  a  few  lamps  here  and  there  were  but  red  specks 
on  a  pall  of  darkness ;  and  to  think  of  the  guilty  knights  riding 
away  on  horseback,  looking  over  their  shoulders  at  the  dim 
cathedral,  and  remembering  what  they  had  left  inside. 

Part  the  Second. 


When  the  king  heard  how  Thomas  k  Becket  had  lost  his 
life  in  Canterbury  Cathedral,  through  the  ferocity  of  the  four 
knights,  he  was  filled  with  dismay.  Some  have  supposed  that 
when  the  king  spoke  those  hasty  word&,  "  Have  I  no  one  here 
who  will  deliver  me  from  this  man  ? ''  he  wished  and  meant 
\  Becket  to  be  slain.  But  few  things  are  more  unlikely ;  for, 
besides  that  the  king  was  not  naturally  cruel  (though  very 
passionate),  he  was  wise,  and  must  have  known  full  well  that 
any  stupid  man  in  his  dominions  must  have  known,  namely, 


8a  d  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

that  such  a  murder  would  rouse  the  pope  and  the  whole  Church 
against  him. 

He  sent  respectful  messengers  to  the  pope,  to  represent  his 
innocence  (except  in  having  uttered  the  hasty  words) ;  and  he 
swore  solemnly  and  pi^blicly  to  his  innocence,  and  contrived  in 
time  to  make  his  peace.  As  to  the  four  guilty  knights,  who 
fled  into  Yorkshire,  an^  nev^r  ag  In  dared  to  show  themselves 
at  court,  the  pope  excomn.  :r.!  at  id  them  ;  and  they  lived  miser- 
ably for  some  time,  shunned  by  all  their  countrymen.  At  last 
they  went  humbly  to  Jerusalem,  as  a  penance,  and  there  died 
and  were  buried. 

It  happened  fortunately  for  the  pacifying  of  the  pope,  tha: 
an  opportunity  arose  very  soon  after  the  murder  of  k  Becket, 
for  the  king  to  declare  his  power  in  Ireland  ;  which  was  an  ac 
ceptable  undertaking  to  the  pope,  as  the  Irish,  who  had  been 
converted  to  Christianity  by  one  Patricius  (otherwise  St.  Patrick) 
long  ago,  before  any  pope  existed,  considered  that  the  j)ope  had 
nothing  at  all  to  do  with  them,  or  they  with  the  pope,  and"  ac- 
cordingly refused  to  pay  him  Peter's  Pence,  or  that  tax  of  a 
penny  a  house,  which  I  have  elsewhere  mentioned.  The  king's 
opportunity  arose  in  this  way. 

The  Irish,  were  at  that  time,  as  barbarous  a  people  as  you 
can  well  imagine.  They  were  continually  quarrelling  and  fight- 
ing, cutting  one  another's  throats,  slicing  one  another's  noses, 
burning  one  another's  houses,  carrying  away  one  another's 
wives,  and  committing  all  sorts  of  violence.  The  country  was 
divided  into  five  kingdoms, — Desmond,  Thomond,  Connaught, 
Ulster,  and  Leinster, — each  governed  by  a  separate  king,  of 
whom  one  claimed  to  be  the  chief  of  the  rest.  Now  one  of  these 
kings,  named  Dermond  MacMurrough  (a  wild  kind  of  name, 
spelt  in  more  than  one  wild  kind  of  way),  had  carried  off  the 
wife  of  a  friend  of  his,  and  concealed  her  on  an  island  in  a  bog. 
The  friend,  resenting  this  (though  it  was  quite  the  custom  of 
the  country),  complained  to  the  chief  king,  and,  with  the  chief 
king's  help,  drove  Dermond  MacMurrough  out  of  his  do- 
minions. Dermond  came  over  to  England  for  revenge  ;  and 
offered  to  hold  his  realm  as  a  vassal  of  King  Henry,  if  King 
Henry  would  help  him  to  regain  it.  The  king  consented  to 
these  terms ;  but  only  assisted  him  with  what  were  then  called 
letters-patent,  authorizing  any  English  subjects,  who  were  so 
disposed,  to  enter  into  his  service,  and  aid  his  cause. 

There  was  at  Bristol  a  certain  Earl  Richard  de  Clare,  called 
Strongbow,  of  no  very  good  character,  needy  and  desperate, 
and  ready  for  anything  that  offered  him  a  chance  of  improving 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND.  g^ 

/lis  fortunes.  There  were,  in  South  Wales,  two  other  broken 
knights  of  the  same  good-for-nothing  sort,  called  Robert  Fitz- 
Stephen  and  Maurice  Fitz- Gerald.  These  three,  each  with  a 
small  band  of  followers,  took  up  Dermond's  cause  j  and  it  was 
agreed,  that,  if  it  proved  successful,  Strongbow  would  marry 
Dermond's  daughter  Eva,  and  be  declared  his  heir. 

The  trained  English  followers  of  these  knights  were  so 
superior  in  all  the  discipline  of  battle  to  the  Irish,  that  they 
beat  them  against  immense  superiority  of  numbers.  In  one 
fight,  early  in  the  war,  they  cut  off  three  hundred  heads  and 
laid  them  before  MacMurrough,  who  turned  them  every  one  up 
with  his  hands,  rejoicing,  and  coming  to  one  which  was  the 
head  of  a  man  whom  he  had  much  disliked,  grasped  it  by  the 
hair  and  ears,  and  tore  off  the  nose  and  lips  with  his  teeth. 
You  may  judge  from  this  what  kind  of  a  gentleman  an  Irish 
king  in  those  times  was.  The  captives,  all  through  this  war, 
were  horribly  treated ;  the  victorious  party  making  nothing  of 
breaking  their  limbs,  and  casting  them  into  the  sea  from  the 
tops  of  high  rocks.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  miseries  and 
cruelties  attendant  on  the  taking  of  Waterford,  where  the  dead 
lay  piled  in  the  streets,  and  the  filthy  gutters  ran  with  blood,  that 
Strongbow  married  Eva.  An  odious  marriage  company  those 
mounds  of  corpses  must  have  made,  I  think,  and  one  qui'-e 
worthy  of  the  young  lady's  father. 

He  died,  after  Waterford  and  Dublin  had  been  taken,  and 
various  successes  achieved  ;  and  Strongbow  became  king  of 
Leinster.  Now  came  King  Henry's  opportunity.  To  restrain 
the  growing  power  of  Strongbow,  he  himself  repaired  to  Dublin, 
as  Strongbow's  royal  master,  and  deprived  him  of  his  kingdom, 
but  confirmed  him  in  the  enjoyment  of  great  possessions.  The 
king,  then  holding  state  in  Dublin,  received  the  homage  of 
nearly  all  the  Irish  kings  and  chiefs,  and  so  came  home  again 
with  a  great  addition  to  his  reputation  as  Lord  of  Ireland,  and 
with  a  new  claim  on  the  favor  of  the  pope.  And  now  their  re- 
conciliation was  completed, — more  easily  and  mildly  by  the 
pope  than  the  king  might  have  expected,  I  think. 

At  this  period  of  his  reign,  when  his  troubles  seemed  so 
few  and  his  prospects  so  bright,  those  domestic  miseries  began 
which  gradually  made  the  king  the  most  unhappy  of  men, 
reduced  his  great  spirit,  wore  away  his  health,  and  broke  his 
heart. 

He  had  four  sons.  Henr}%  now  aged  eighteen, — his  secret 
crowning  of  whom  had  given  such  offence  to  Thomas  ^  Becket ; 
Richard,  aged  sixteen;  Geoffrey,  fifteen  ;  and  John  his  favorite, 


84  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

a  young  boy  whom  the  courtiers  named  Lackland  because  he 
had  no  inheritance,  but  to  whom  tlie  king  meant  to  give  the 
Lordship  of  Ireland.  All  these  misguided  boys,  in  their  turn, 
were  unnatural  sons  to  him,  and  unnatural  brothers  to  each 
other.  Prince  Henry,  stimulated  by  the  French  king,  and  by 
his  bad  mother,  Queen  Eleanor,  began  the  undutiful  history. 

First,  he  demanded  that  his  young  wife,  Margaret,  the 
French  king's  daughter,  should  be  crowned  as  well  as  he. 
His  father,  the  king,  consented,  and  it  was  done.  It  was  no 
sooner  done,  than  he  demanded  to  have  a  part  of  his  father'; 
dominions  during  his  father's  life.  This  being  refused,  he 
made  off  from  his  father  in  the  night,  with  his  bad  heart  full  of 
bitterness,  and  took  refuge  at  the  French  king's  court,  Within 
a  day  or  two,  his  brothers  Richard  and  Geoffrey  followed. 
Their  mother  tried  to  join  them,  escaphig  in  man's  clothes ; 
but  she  'A'as  seized  by  King  Henry's  men,  and  immured  in 
prison,  where  she  lay,  deservedly,  for  sixteen  years.  Every 
day,  however,  some  grasping  English  nobleman,  to  whom  the 
king's  protection  of  his  people  from  their  avarice  and  oppres- 
sion had  given  offence,  deserted  him,  and  joined  the  princes. 
Every  day  he  heard  some  fresh  intelligence  of  the  princes 
levying  armies  against  him  ;  of  Prince  Henry's  wearing  a 
crown  before  his  own  ambassadors  at  the  French  court,  and 
being  called  the  Junior  King  of  England  ;  of  all  the  princes 
swearing  never  to  make  peace  with  him,  their  father,  without 
the  consent  and  approval  of  the  barons  of  France.  But,  with 
his  fortitude  and  energy  unshaken,  King  Henry  met  the  shock 
of  these  disasters  with  a  resolved  and  cheerful  face.  He 
called  upon  all  royal  fathers  who  had  sons  to  help  him,  for  his 
cause  was  theirs  ;  he  hired,  out  of  his  riches,  twenty  thousand 
men  to  fight  the  false  French  king,  who  stirred  his  own  blood 
against  him ;  and  he  carried  on  the  war  with  such  vigor,  that 
Louis  soon  proposed  a  conference  to  treat  for  peace. 

The  conference  was  held  beneath  an  old  wide-spreading 
green  elm-tree,  upon  a  plain  in  France.  It  led  to  nothing. 
The  war  recommenced.  Prince  Richard  began  his  fighting 
career  by  leading  an  army  against  his  father  :  but  his  father 
beat  him  and  his  army  back  ;  and  thousands  of  his  men  would 
have  rued  the  day  in  which  they  fought  in  such  a  wicked  cause, 
had  not  the  king  received  news  of  an  invasion  of  England  by 
the  Scots,  and  promptly  come  home  through  a  great  storm  to 
repress  it.  And  whether  he  really  began  to  fear  that  he  suf- 
fered these  toubles  because  a  Becket  had  been  murdered ;  or 
whether  he  wished  to  rise  in  favor  pf  his  own  people,  of  whom 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND.  85 

many  believed  that  even  k  Becket's  senseless  tomb  could  work 
miracles,  I  don't  know,  but  the  king  no  sooner  landed  in 
England,  than  he  went  straight  to  Canterbury  ;  and  when  he 
came  within  sight  of  the  distant  cathedral,  he  dismounted  from 
his  horse,  took  off  his  shoes,  and  walked  with  bare  and  bleed 
ing  feet  to  a  Becket's  grave.  There  he  lay  down  on  the 
ground,  lamenting,  in  the  presence  of  many  people ;  and  by 
and  by  he  went  into  the  Chapter  House,  and  removing  his 
clothes  from  his  neck  and  shoulders,  submitted  himself  to  be 
beaten  with  knotted  cords  (not  beaten  very  hard,  I  daresay 
though)  by  eighty  priests,  one  after  another.  It  chanced,  that, 
on  the  very  day  when  the  king  made  this  curious  exhibition  of 
himself,  a  complete  victory  was  obtained  over  the  Scots  ;  which 
very  much  delighted  the  priests,  who  said  that  in  was  won 
because  of  his  great  example  of  repentance.  For  the  priests 
in  general  had  found  out,  since  a  Becket's  death,  that  they 
admired  him  of  all  things,  though  they  hated  him  very  cordially 
when  he  was  alive. 

The  Earl  of  Flanders,  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  base 
conspiracy  of  the  king's  undutiful  sons  and  their  foreign 
friends,  took  the  opportunity  of  the  king  being  thus  employed 
at  home  to  lay  siege  to  Rouen,  the  capital  of  Normandy.  But 
the  king,  who  was  extraordinarily  quick  and  active  in  all  his 
movements,  was  at  Rouen  too,  before  it  was  supposed  possible 
that  he  could  have  left  England  ;  and  there  he  so  defeated  the 
said  Earl  of  Flanders,  that  the  conspirators  proposed  peace, 
ana  his  bad  sons,  Henry  and  Geoffrey,  submitted.  Richard 
resisted  for  six  weeks  ;  but,  being  beaten  out  of  castle  after 
cas:]e,  he  at  last  submitted  too,  and  his  father  forgave  him. 

To  forgive  these  unworthy  princes  was  only  to  afford  them 
breathing-time  for  new  faithlessness.  They  were  so  false,  dis- 
.oya.j  and  dishonorable,  that  they  were  no  more  to  be  trusted 
than  common  thieves.  In  the  very  next  year.  Prince  Henry 
rebe^^d  again,  and  was  again  forgiven.  In  eight  years  more, 
Prince  Richard  rebelled  against  his  elder  brother ;  and  Prince 
Geoffrey  infamously  said  that  the  brothers  could  never  agree 
well  together,  unless  they  were  united  against  their  father.  In 
the  very  next  year  after  their  reconciliation  by  the  king,  Prince 
Henry  again  rebelled  against  his  father ;  and  again  submitted, 
swearing  to  be  true,  and  was  again  forgiven ;  and  again  re- 
belled with  Geoffrey. 

But  the  end  of  this  perfidious  prince  was  come.  He  fell 
sick  at  a  French  town  ;  and  his  conscience  terribly  reproaching 
him  with  his  baseness,  he  sent  messengers  to  the  king  his 


86  ^  CHlLb'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

father,  imploring  him  to  come  and  see  him,  and  to  forgive  him 
for  the  last  time  on  his  bed  of  death.  The  generous  king,  who 
had  a  royal  and  forgiving  mind  towards  his  children  always, 
would  have  gone  ;  but  this  prince  had  been  so  unnatural,  that 
the  noblemen  about  the  king  susptJted  treachery,  and  repre- 
sented to  him  that  he  could  not  safely  trust  his  life  with  such 
a  traitor,  though  his  own  eldest  son.  Therefore  the  king  sent 
him  a  ring  from  off  his  finger  as  a  token  of  forgiveness  ;  and 
when  the  prince  had  kissed  it  with  much  grief  and  many  tears, 
and  had  confessed  to  those  around  him  how  bad  and  wicked 
and  unduliful  a  son  he  had  been,  he  said  to  the  attendant 
priests,  "  O,  tie  a  rope  about  my  body,  and  draw  me  out  of 
bed,  and  lay  me  down  upon  a  bed  of  ashes,  that  I  may  die 
with  prayers  to  God  in  a  repentant  manner ! "  And  so  he 
died,  at  twenty-seven  years  old. 

Three  years  afterwards,  Prince  Geoffrey,  being  unhorsed  at 
ft  tournament,  had  his  brains  trampled  out  by  a  crowd  of  horses 
passing  over  him.  So  there  only  remained  Prince  Richard, 
and  Prince  John, — who  had  grown  to  be  a  young  man  now, 
and  had  solemnly  sworn  to  be  faithful  to  his  father.  Richard 
soon  rebelled  again,  encouraged  by  his  friend  the  French  king, 
Philip  the  Second  (son  of  Louis,  who  was  dead),  and  soon  sub- 
mitted, and  was  again  forgiven,  swearing  on  the  New  Testa- 
ment never  to  rebel  again  ;  and,  in  another  year  or  so,  rebelled 
again,  and  in  the  presence  of  his  father,  knelt  down  on  his 
knee  before  the  King  of  France,  and  did  the  French  king  hom- 
age, and  declared,  that  with  his  aid  he  would  possess  himself 
oy  force,  of  all  his  father's  French  dominions. 

And  yet  this  Richard  called  himself  a  soldier  of  our 
Saviour !  And  yet  this  Richard  wore  the  cross,  which  the 
kings  of  France  and  England  had  both  taken,  in  the  previous 
years,  at  a  brotherly  meeting  underneath  the  old  wide-spread- 
ing elm-tree  on  the  plain,  when  they  had  sworn  (like  him)  to 
devote  themselves  to  a  new  Crusade,  for  the  love  and  honor 
of  the  truth  ! 

Sick  at  heart,  wearied  out  by  the  falsehood  of  his  sons,  and 
almost  ready  to  lie  down  and  die,  the  unhappy  king,  who  had 
so  long  stood  firm,  began  to  fail.  But  the  pope,  to  his  honor, 
supported  him  ;  and  obliged  the  French  king  and  Richard, 
though  successful  in  fight,  to  treat  for  peace.  Richard  wanted 
to  be  crowned  king  of  England,  and  pretended  that  he  wanted 
to  be  married  (which  he  really  did  not)  to  the  French  king's 
sister,  his  promised  wife,  whom  King  Henry  detained  in  Eng- 
land.     King  Henry   wanted,  on   the    other    hand,  that   the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SECOND.  87 

French  king's  sister  should  be  married  to  his  favoriie  sou, 
John  ;  the  only  one  of  his  sons  (he  said)  who  I;ad  nevtr  re- 
belled against  him.  At  last  King  Henr)',  deserted  by  his 
nobles  one  by  one,  distressed,  exhausted,  broken-hearted,  con- 
sented to  establish  peace. 

One  final  heavy  sorrow  was  reserved  for  him,  even  yet. 
When  they  brought  him  the  proposed  treaty  of  peace  in  writing, 
as  he  lay  very  ill  in  bed,  they  brought  him  also  the  list  of  the 
deserters  from  their  allegiance,  whom  he  was  required  to 
pardon.  The  first  name  upon  this  list  was  John,  his  favorite 
son,  in  whom  he  had  trusted  to  the  last. 

"  O  John  !  child  of  my  heart !  "  exclaimed  the  king,  in  a 
great  agony  of  mind  ;  "  O  John  !  whom  I  have  loved  the  best ; 

0  John  !  for  whom  I  have  contended  through  these  many 
troubles, — have  you  betrayed  me  too  !  "  And  then  he  lay  down 
with  a  heavy  groan,  he  said,  "  Now  let  the  world  go  as  it  will ; 

1  care  for  nothing  more." 

After  a  time,  he  told  his  attendants  to  take  him  to  the 
French  town  of  Chinon, — a  town  he  had  been  fond  of  during 
many  years.  But  he  was  fond  of  no  place  now,  it  was  too  true 
that'  he  could  care  for  nothing  more  upon  this  earth.  He 
wildly  cursed  the  hour  when  he  was  born,  and  cursed  the 
children  whom  he  left  behind,  and  expired. 

As  one  hundred  years  before,  the  servile  followers  of  the 
court  had  abandoned  the  Conqueror  in  the  hour  of  his  death, 
so  they  now  abandoned  his  descendant.  The  very  body  was 
stripped,  in  the  plunder  of  the  royal  chamber,  and  it  was  not 
easy  to  find  the  means  of  carr}'ing  it  for  the  burial  to  the  abbey- 
church  of  Fontevraud, 

Richard  was  said  in  after  years,  by  way  of  flattery,  to  have 
the  heart  of  a  lion.  It  would  have  been  far  better,  1  think,  to 
have  the  heart  of  a  man.  His  heart,  whatever  it  was,  had 
cause  to  beat  remorsefully  within  his  breast,  when  he  came — 
as  he  did — into  the  solemn  abbey,  and  looked  on  his  dead 
father's  uncovered  face.  His  heart,  whatever  it  was,  had  been 
a  black  and  perjured  heart,  in  all  its  dealings  with  the  deceased 
king,  and  more  deficient  in  a  single  touch  of  tenderness  than 
any  wild  beast's  in  the  forest. 

There  is  a  pretty  story  told  of  this  reign,  called  the  story  of 
Fair  Rosamond.  It  relates  how  the  king  doted  on  Fair  Rosa- 
mond, who  was  the  loveliest  girl  in  all  the  world  ;  and  how  he 
had  a  beautiful  bower  built  for  her  in  a  park  at  Woodstock  ; 
arvd  how  it  was  erected  in  a  labyrinth,  and  could  only  be  found 
by  a  clew  of  silk.     How  the  bad  Queen  Eleanor,  becoming 


88  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

jeaious  of  Fair  Rosamond,  found  out  the  secret  of  the  clew, 
and  one  day  appeared  before  her,  with  a  dagger  and  a  cup  of 
poison,  and  left  her  to  the  choice  between  those  deaths.  How 
Fair  Rosamond,  after  shedding  many  piteous  tears,  and  offering 
many  useless  prayers  to  the  cruel  queen,  took  the  poison,  and 
fell  dead  in  the  midst  of  the  beautiful  bower,  while  the  un- 
conscious birds  sang  gayly  all  around  her. 

Now,  there  was  a  fair  Rosamond,  and  she  was  (I  dare  say) 
the  loveliest  girl  in  all  the  world,  and  the  king  was  certainly  very 
fond  of  her,  and  the  bad  Queen  Eleanor  was  certainly  made 
jealous.  But  I  am  afraid — I  say  afraid,  because  I  like  the 
story  so  much — that  there  was  no  bower,  no  labyrinth,  no 
silken  clew,  no  dagger,  no  poison.  I  am  afraid  Fair  Rosamond 
retired  to  a  nunnery  near  Oxford,  and  died  there  peaceably ; 
her  sister-nuns  hanging  a  silken  drapery  over  her  tomb,  and 
often  dressing  it  with  flowers,  in  remembrance  of  the  youth  and 
beauty  that  had  enchanted  the  king  when  he,  too,  was  young, 
and  when  his  life  lay  fair  before  him. 

It  was  dark  and  ended  now  ;  faded  and  gone.  Henry 
Plantagenet  lay  quiet  in  the  abbey-church  of  Fontevraud,  in  the 
fifty-seventh  year  of  his  age, — never  to  be  completed, — aftei 
governing  England  well  for  nearly  thirty-five  years. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  FIRST,  CALLED  THE  LION-HEART. 

In  the  year  of  our  Lord  1189,  Richard  of  the  Lion  Heart 
succeeded  to  the  throne  of  King  Henry  the  Second,  whose 
paternal  heart  he  had  done  so  much  to  break.  He  had  been, 
as  we  have  seen,  a  rebel  from  his  boyhood ;  but  the  moment  he 
became  a  king  against  whom  others  might  rebel,  he  found  out 
that  rebellion  was  a  great  wickedness.  In  the  heat  of  this 
pious  discovery,  he  punished  all  the  leading  people  who  had 
befriended  him  against  his  father.  He  could  scarcely  have 
done  anything  that  would  have  been  a  better  instance  of  his 
real  nature,  or  a  better  warning  to  fawners  and  parasites  not  to 
trust  in  lion-hearted  princes. 

He  likewise  put  his  late  father's  treasurer  in  chains,  and 
locked  him  up  in  a  dungeon  from  which  he  was  not  set  free 
until  he  had  relinquished,  not  only  all  the  crown  treasure,  but 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  FIRST.  89 

all  his  own  money  too.  So  Richard  certainly  got  the  lion's 
share  of  the  wealth  of  this  wretched  treasurer,  whether  he  had 
a  lion's  heart  or  not. 

He  was  crowned  king  of  England,  with  great  pomp,  at 
Westminster ;  walking  to  the  cathedral  under  a  silken  canopy 
stretched  on  the  tops  of  four  lances,  each  carried  by  a  great 
lord.  On  the  day  of  his  coronation,  a  dreadful  murdering  of 
the  Jews  took  place,  which  seems  to  have  given  great  delight 
to  numbers  of  savage  persons  calling  themselves  Christians. 
The  king  had  issued  a  proclamation  forbidding  the  Jews  (who 
were  generally  hated,  though  they  were  the  most  useful  mer- 
chants in  England)  to  appear  at  the  ceremony ;  but  as  they 
had  assembled  in  London  from  all  parts,  bringing  presents  to 
show  their  respect  for  the  new  sovereign,  some  of  them  ven- 
tured down  to  Westminister  Hall  with  their  gifts,  which  were 
very  readily  accepted.  It  is  supposed  now  that  some  noisy 
fellow  in  the  crowd,  pretending  to  be  a  very  delicate  Christian, 
set  up  a  howl  at  this,  and  struck  a  Jew  who  was  trying  to  get 
in  at  the  hall-door  with  his  present.  A  riot  arose  ;  the  Jews 
who  had  got  into  the  hall  were  driven  forth :  and  some  of  the 
rabble  cried  out  that  the  new  king  had  commanded  the  un- 
believing race  to  be  put  to  death.  Thereupon,  the  crowd 
rushed  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the  city,  slaughtering  all 
the  Jews  they  met ;  and  when  they  could  find  no  more  out  of 
doors  (on  account  of  their  having  fled  to  their  houses,  and 
fastened  themselves  in),  they  ran  madly  about,  breaking  open 
all  the  houses  where  the  Jews  lived,  rushing  in  and  stabbing  or 
spearing  them,  sometimes  even  flinging  old  people  and  children 
out  of  window  into  blazing  fires  they  had  lighted,  up  below. 
This  great  cruelty  lasted  four-and-twenty  hours,  and  only  three 
men  were  punished  for  it.  Even  they  forfeited  their  lives,  not 
for  murdering  and  robbing  the  Jews,  but  for  burning  the  houses 
of  some  Christians. 

King  Richard,  who  was  a  strong,  restless,  burly  man,  with 
one  idea  always  in  his  head,  and  that  the  very  troublesome 
idea  of  breaking  the  heads  of  other  men,  was  mightily  im- 
patient to  go  on  a  crusade  to  the  Holy  Land,  with  a  great 
army.  As  great  armies  could  not  be  raised  to  go,  even  to  the 
Holy  Land,  without  a  great  deal  of  money,  he  sold  the  crown- 
domains,  and  even  the  high  offices  of  state  ;  recklessly  appoint- 
ing noblemen  to  rule  over  his  English  subjects,  not  because  they 
were  fit  to  govern,  but  because  they  could  pay  high  for  the  pri- 
vilege. In  this  way,  and  by  selling  pardons  at  a  dear  rate,  and 
by  varieties  of  avarice  and  oppression,  he  scraped  together  a 


90  -^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

large  treasure.  He  then  appointed  two  bishops  to  take  care 
of  his  kingdom  in  his  absence,  and  gave  great  powers  and  pos- 
sessions to  his  brother  John,  to  secure  his  frendship.  John 
would  rather  have  been  made  Regent  of  England ;  but  he  was 
a  sly  man,  and  friendly  to  the  expedition,  saying  to  himself,  no 
doubt,  "  The  more  fighting,  the  more  chance  of  my  brother 
being  killed  ;  and  when  he  is  killed,  then  I  become  Kin::^;  John  !  " 

Before  the  newly  levied  army  departed  from  England,  the 
recruits  and  the  general  populace  distinguished  themselves  by 
astonishing  cruelties  on  the  unfortunate  Jews,  whom,  in  many 
large  towns,  they  murdered  by  hundreds  in  the  most  horrible 
manner. 

At  York,  a  large  body  of  Jews  took  refuge  in  the  castle,  in 
the  absence  of  its  governor,  after  the  wives'  and  children  of 
many  of  them  had  been  slain  before  their  eyes.  Presently  came 
the  governor,  and  demanded  admission.  "  How  can  we  give  it 
thee,  O  Governor ! "  said  the  Jews  upon  the  walls,  "  when,  if 
we  open  the  gate  so  much  as  the  width  of  a  foot,  the  roaring 
crowd  behind  thee  will  press  in  and  kill  us." 

Upon  this  the  unjust  governor  became  angry,  and  told  the 
people  that  he  approved  of  their  killing  those  Jews,  and  a  mis- 
chievous maniac  of  a  friar,  dressed  all  in  white,  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  assault,  and  they  assaulted  the  castle  for  three 
cays. 

Then  said  Jocen,  the  head  Jew  (who  was  a  rabbi  or  priest) 
to  the  rest.  **  Brethren,  there  is  no  hope  for  us  with  the  Chris- 
tians who  are  hammering  at  the  gates  and  wall,  and  who  must 
soon  break  in.  As  we  and  our  wives  and  children  must 
die,  either  by  Christian  hands  or  by  our  own,  let  it  be  by  our 
own.  Let  us  destroy  by  fire  what  jewels  and  other  treasure 
we  have  here,  then  fire  the  castle,  and  then  perish." 

A  few  could  not  resolve  to  do  this,  but  the  greater  part 
complied.  They  made  a  blazing  heap  of  all  their  valuables, 
and  when  those  were  consumed,  set  the  castle  in  flames. 
While  the  flames  roared  and  crackled  around  them,  and,  shoot 
ing  up  into  the  sky,  turned  it  blood-red,  Jocen  cut  the  throat  of 
his  beloved  wife  and  stabbed  himself.  All  the  others  who  had 
wives  or  children  did  the  like  dreadful  deed.  When  the  popu- 
lace broke  in,  they  found  (except  the  trembling  few,  cowering 
in  corners,  whom  they  soon  killed)  only  heaps  of  greasy  cin- 
ders, with  here  and  there  something  like  part  of  the  blackened 
trunk  of  a  burnt  tree,  but  which  had  lately  been  a  human 
creature,  formed  by  the  beneficent  hand  of  the  Creator,  as  they 
were. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  FIRST,  91 

After  this  bad  beginning  Richard  and  his  troops  went  on, 
in  no  very  good  manner,  with  the  holy  crusade.  It  was  under- 
taken jointly  by  the  King  of  England  and  his  old  friend  Philip 
of  France.  They  commenced  the  business  by  reviewing  their 
forces,  to  the  number  of  a  hundred  thousand  men.  Afterwards 
they  severally  embarked  their  troops  for  Messina,  in  Sicil}', 
which  was  appointed  at  the  next  place  of  meeting. 

King  Richard's  sister  had  married  the  king  of  this  plact, 
but  he  was  dead ;  and  his  uncle  Tancred  had  usurped  ti.e 
crown,  cast  the  royal  widow  into  prison,  and  possessed  himself 
of  her  estates.  Richard  fiercely  demanded  his  sister's  release, 
the  restoration  of  her  lands,  and  (according  to  the  royal  custom 
of  the  island)  that  she  should  have  a  golden  chair,  a  golden 
table,  four-and-twenty  silver  cups,  and  four-and-twenty  silver 
dishes.  As  he  was  too  powerful  to  be  successfully  resisted, 
Tancred  yielded  to  his  demands  ;  and  then  the  French  king 
grew  jealous,  and  complained  that  the  English  king  wanted  to 
be  absolute  in  the  island  of  Messina  and  everywhere  else. 
Richard,  however,  cared  little  or  nothing  for  this  complaint  ; 
and,  in  consideration  of  a  present  of  twenty  thousand  pieces  of 
gold,  promised  his  pretty  little  nephew  Arthur,  then  a  child  of 
two  years  old,  in  mani.ige  to  Tancred's  daughter.  We  shall 
hear  again  of  pretty  little  Arthur  by  and  by. 

This  Sicilian  aif air  arranged  without  anybody's  brains  being 
knocked  out  (which  must  have  rather  disappointed  him)  King 
Richard  took  his  sister  away,  and  also  a  fair  lady  named  Beren- 
garia,  with  whom  he  had  fallen  in  love  in  France,  and  whom  his 
mother.  Queen  Eleanor  (so  long  in  prison,  you  remember,  but 
released  by  Richard  on  his  coming  to  the  throne),  had  brought 
out  there  to  be  his  wife,  and  sailed  with  them  for  Cyprus. 

He  soon  had  the  pleasure  of  fighting  the  king  of  the  Island 
ci  Cyprus,  for  allowing  his  subjects  to  pillage  some  of  the  Eng- 
iish  troops  who  were  shipwrecked  on  the  shore  ;  and,  easily 
conquering  this  poor  monarch,  he  seized  his  only  daughter  to  be  a 
companion  to  the  Lady  Berengaria,  and  put  the  king  himself 
:nto  silver  fetters.  He  then  sailed  away  again  with  his  mother, 
sister,  wife,  and  the  captive  princess  ;  and  soon  arrived  before 
the  town  of  Acre,  which  the  French  king  with  his  fleet  was  be- 
sieging from  the  sea.  But  the  French  king  was  in  no  trium- 
phant condition  ;  for  his  army  had  been  thinned  by  the  swords 
of  the  Saracens,  and  wasted  by  the  plague  ;  and  Saladin,  the 
brave  sultan  of  the  Turks,  at  the  head  of  the  numerous  army, 
was  at  that  time  gallantly  defending  the  place  from  the  hills  that 
rise  above  it. 


93  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Wherever  the  united  army  of  the  Crusaders  went,  they 
agreed  in  few  points  except  in  gaming,  drinking,  and  quarrel- 
ling in  a  most  unholy  manner  ;  in  debauching  the  people  among 
whom  they  tarried,  whether  they  were  friends  or  foes  ;  and  in 
carrying  disturbances  and  ruin  into  quiet  Maces.  The  French 
king  was  jealous  of  the  English  king,  and  -;e  English  king  was 
jealous  of  the  French  king,  and  the  disorderly  and  violent  sol- 
diers of  the  two  nations  were  jealous  of  one  another ;  conse- 
quently the  two  kings  could  not  at  first  ngree,  even  upon  a  joint 
assault  on  Acre  ;  but  when  they  did  make  up  their  quarrel  for 
that  purpose,  the  Saracens  promised  to  yield  the  town,  to  give 
up  the  Christians  the  wood  of  the  holy  cross,  to  set  at  liberty 
all  their  Christian  captives,  and  to  pay  two  hundred  thousand 
pieces  of  gold.  All  this  was  to  be  done  within  forty  days  ;  but 
not  being  done.  King  Richard  ordered  some  three  thousand 
Saracen  prisoners  to  be  brought  out  in  the  front  of  his  camp, 
and  there,  in  full  view  of  their  own  countrymen,  to  be 
butchered. 

The  French  king  had  no  part  in  that  crime ;  for  he  was  by 
that  time  travelling  homeward  with  the  greater  part  ot  iiis  men, 
being  offended  by  the  overbearing  conduct  of  the  English  king, 
being  anxious  to  look  after  his  own  dominions,  and  being  ill, 
besides,  from  the  unwholesome  air  of  that  hot  and  sandy 
country.  King  Richard  carried  on  the  war  without  him,  and 
remained  in  the  East,  meeting  with  a  variety  of  adventures, 
nearly  a  year  and  a  half.  Every  night  when  his  army  was  on 
the  march  and  came  to  a  halt,  the  heralds  cried  out  three  times, 
to  remind  all  the  soldiers  of  the  cause  in  which  they  were  en- 
gaged, "  Save  the  holy  sepulchre  !  "  and  then  all  the  soldiers 
knelt  and  said  "  Amen  !  "  Marching  or  encamping,  the  army 
had  continually  to  strive  with  the  hot  air  of  the  glaring  desert, 
or  with  the  Saracen  soldiers  animated  and  directed  by  the 
brave  Saladin,  or  with  both  together.  Sickness  a  d  death, 
battle  and  wounds^  were  always  among  them ;  but  through 
every  difficulty  King  Richard  fought  like  a  giant,  and  wor]  ed 
like  a  common  laborer.  Long  and  long  after  he  was  quiet  in 
his  grave,  his  terrible  battle-axe,  with  twenty  English  pounds  of 
English  steel  in  its  mighty  head,  was  a  legend  among  the  Sara- 
cens ;  and  when  all  the  Saracen  and  Christian  hosts  had  been 
dust  for  many  a  year,  if  a  Saracen  horse  started  at  any  object 
by  the  wayside,  his  rider  would  exclaim,  "  What  dost  thou  fear, 
fool  ?     Dost  thou  think  King  Richard  is  behind  it  ?  " 

No  one  admired  this  king's  renown  for  bravery  more  than 
Saladin  himself,  who  was  a  generous  and  gallant  enemy.    When 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  FIRST,  g3 

Richard  lay  ill  of  a  fever,  Saladin  sent  him  fresh  ituiCA  from  Da- 
mascus, and  snow  from  the  mountain -tops  Courtly  messages 
and  compliments  were  frequently  exchanged  between  them  ; 
and  then  King  Richard  would  mount  his  horse,  and  kill  as 
many  Saracens  as  he  could,  and  Saladin  would  mount  his,  and 
kill  as  many  Christians  as  he  could.  In  this  way  King  Rich- 
ard fought  to  his  heart's  content  at  Arsoof  and  at  Jaffa  ;  and 
finding  himself  with  nothing  exciting  to  do  at  Ascalon,  except 
to  rebuild,  for  his  own  defence,  some  fortifications  there  which 
the  Saracens  had  destroyed,  he  kicked  his  ally,  the  Duke  of 
Austria,  for  being  too  proud  to  work  at  them. 

The  army  at  last  came  within  sight  of  the  holy  city  of  Jeru- 
salem but  being  then  a  mere  nest  of  jealousy,  and  quarrelling 
and  fighting,  soon  retired,  and  agreed  with  the  Saracens  upon 
a  truce  for  three  years,  three  months,  three  days,  and  three 
hours.  Then  the  English  Christians,  protected  by  the  noble 
Saladin,  from  Saracen  revenge,  visited  our  Saviour's  tomb  ;  and 
then  King  Richard  embarked  with  a  small  tcrce  at  Acre  to  re- 
turn home. 

But  he  was  shipwrecked  in  the  Adriatic  Sea,  and  was  fain 
to  pass  through  Germany  r.iuler  an  assumed  name.  Now,  there 
were  many  people  in  Germar/,-  who  had  served  in  the  Holy 
Land  under  that  proud  duke  of  Austria  who  had  been  kicked  \ 
and  some  of  them,  easily  recognizing  a  man  so  remarkable  as 
King  Richard,  carried  their  intelligence  to  the  kicked  duke, 
who  straightway  took  him  prisoner  at  a  little  inn  near  Vienna. 

The  duke's  master,  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  and  the  king 
of  France,  were  equally  delighted  to  have  so  troublesome  a 
monarch  in  safe  keeping.  Friendships  which  are  founded  on 
a  partnership  in  doing  wrong  are  never  true  \  and  the  King  of 
France  was  now  quite  as  heartily  King  Richard's  foe  as  he  had 
ever  been  his  friend  in  his  unnatural  conduct  to  his  father.  He 
monstrously  ]'r tended  that  King  Richard  had  designed  to 
poison  him  \\\  i;  c  East;  he  charged  him  with  having  murdered 
there  a  man  wl-.om  he  had  in  truth  befriended  ;  he  bribed  the 
Emperor  of  Germany  to  keep  him  close  prisoner  ;  and  finally, 
through  the  plotting  of  these  two  princes,  Richard  was  brought 
before  the  German  legislature,  charged  with  the  foregoing 
crimes,  and  many  others.  But  he  defended  himself  so  well, 
that  many  of  the  assembly  were  moved  to  tears  by  his  eloquence 
and  earnestness.  It  was  decided  that  he  should  be  treated, 
during  the  rest  of  his  captivity,  in  a  manner  more  becoming  his 
dignity  than  he  had  been,  and  that  he  should  be  set  free  on  the 
payment  of  a  heavy  ransom.     This  ransom  the  English  people 


94 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


willingly  raised.  When  Queen  Eleanor  took  it  over  to  Germany, 
it  was  at  first  evaded  and  refused.  But  she  appealed  to  the 
honor  of  all  the  princes  of  the  German  Empire  in  behalf  of  her 
son,  and  appealed  so  well  that  it  was  accepted,  and  the  king- 
released.  Thereupon  the  King  of  France  wrote  to  Prince  John, 
"  Take  care  of  thyself ;  the  Devil  is  unchained  !  " 

Prince  John  had  reason  to  fear  his  brother  ;  for  he  had  been 
a  traitor  to  him  in  his  captivity.  He  had  secretly  joined  the 
French  king,  had  vowed  to  the  English  nobles  and  people  that 
his  brother  was  dead,  and  had  vainly  tried  to  seize  the  crown. 
He  was  now  in  France,  at  a  place  called  Evreux.  Being  the 
meanest  and  basest  of  men,  he  contrived  a  mean  and  base  ex- 
pedient for  making  himself  acceptable  to  his  brcther.  He  in- 
vited the  French  officers  of  the  garrison  in  that  town  to  dinner, 
murdered  them  all,  and  then  took  the  fortress.  With  this  re- 
commendation to  the  good-will  of  a  lion-hearted  monarch,  he 
hastened  to  King  Richard,  fell  on  his  knees  before  him,  and 
obtained  the  intercession  of  Queen  Eleanor.  "  I  forgive  him," 
said  the  king  ;  "  and  I  hope  I  may  forget  the  injury  he  has  done 
me,  as  easily  as  I  know  he  will  forget  my  pardon." 

While  King  Richard  was  in  Sicily,  there  had  been  trouble 
in  his  dominions  at  home  ;  one  of  the  bishops  whom  he  had  left 
charge  thereof  arresting  the  other,  and  making,  ia  his  pride 
and  ambition,  as  great  a  show  as  if  he  were  king  himself.  But 
the  king  hearing  of  it  at  Messina,  and  appointing  a  new  regency, 
this  Longchamp  (for  that  was  his  name)  had  fled  to  France 
in  a  woman's  dress,  and  had  there  been  encouraged  and  sup- 
ported by  the  French  king.  With  all  these  causes  of  offence 
against  Philip  in  his  mind,  King  Richard  had  no  soon-^r  been 
welcomed  home  by  his  enthusiastic  subjects  with  great  display 
and  splendor,  and  had  no  sooner  been  crowned  afresh  at  Win- 
chester, than  he  resolved  to  show  the  French  king  that  the 
Devil  was  unchained  indeed,  and  made  war  against  him  with 
great  fury. 

There  was  fresh  trouble  at  home  about  this  time,  arising 
out  of  the  discontent  of  the  poor  people,  who  complained  that 
they  were  far  m .  re  heavily  taxed  than  the  rich,  and  who  found 
a  sprited  champion  in  William  Fitz-Osbert,  called  Longbeard. 
He  became  the  leader  of  a  secret  society,  comprismg  fifty  thou- 
sand men  ;  he  was  seized  by  surprise ;  he  stabbed  the  citizen 
who  first  laid  hands  upon  him,  and  retreated,  bravely  fighting, 
to  a  church,  which  he  maintained  four  days,  until  he  was  dis- 
lodged by  fire,  and  run  through  the  body  as  he  came  out.  He 
was  not  killed,  though ;  for  he  was  dragged,  half  dead,  at  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  FIRST.  95 

tail  of  a  horse  to  Smithfield,  and  there  hanged.  Death  was 
long  a  favorite  remedy  for  silencing  the  people's  advocates  ; 
but,  as  we  ^o  on  with  this  history,  I  fancy  we  shall  find  them 
difficult  "■    make  an  end  of,  for  all  that. 

The  French  war,  delayed  occasionally  by  a  truce,  was  still 
in  progress  when  a  certain  lord  named  Vidomar,  Viscount  of 
Limoges,  chanced  to  find  in  his  ground  a  treasure  of  ancient 
coins.  As  the  king's  vassal,  he  sent  the  king  half  of  it  ;  but 
the  king  claimed  the  whole.  The  lord  refused  to  yield  the 
whole.  The  king  besieged  the  lord  in  his  castle,  swore  that  he 
would  take  the  castle  by  storm,  and  hang  every  man  of  its  de- 
fenders on  the  battlements. 

There  was  a  strange  old  song  in  that  part  of  the  country, 
to  the  effect,  that  in  Limoges  an  arrow  would  be  made  by  which 
King  Richard  would  die.  It  may  be  that  Bertrand  de  Gour- 
don,  a  young  man  who  was  one  of  the  defenders  of  the  castle, 
had  often  sung  it,  or  heard  it  sung  of  a  wintry  night,  and  remem- 
bered it  when  he  saw,  from  his  post  upon  the  ramparts,  the 
king,  attended  only  by  his  chief  officer,  riding  below  the  walls 
surveying  the  place.  He  drew  an  arrow  to  the  head,  took 
steady  aim,  said  between  his  teeth,  "  Now  I  pray  God  speed 
thee  well,  arrow  ! "  discharged  it,  and  struck  the  king  in  the 
left  shoulder. 

Although  the  wound  was  not  at  first  considered  dangerous, 
it  was  severe  enough  to  cause  the  king  to  retire  to  his  tent,  and 
direct  the  assault  to  be  made  without  him.  The  castle  was 
taken  ;  and  every  man  of  its  defenders  was  hanged,  as  the  king 
had  sworn  all  should  be,  except  Bertrand  de  Gourdon,  who  was 
reserved  until  the  royal  pleasure  respecting  him  should  be 
known. 

By  that  time  unskilful  treatment  had  made  the  wound  mor- 
tal, and  the  king  knew  that  he  was  dying.  He  directed  Ber- 
trand to  be  brought  into  his  tent.  The  young  man  was  brought 
there  heavily  chained.  King  Richard  looked  at  him  steadily. 
He  looked  as  steadily  at  the  king. 

"  Knave !  "  said  King  Richard,  "  what  have  I  done  to  thee, 
that  thou  shouldst  take  my  life  ?  " 

*'  What  hast  thou  done  to  me  ? "  replied  the  young  man. 
"  With  thine  own  hands  thou  hast  killed  my  father  and  my  two 
brothers.  Myself  thou  wouldst  hj.vj '  jiged.  Let  me  die,  now, 
by  any  torture  that  thou  wilt.  My  comfort  is,  that  no  torture 
can  save  thee.  Thou,  too,  must  die ;  and  through  me  the 
world  is  quit  of  thee." 

Again  the  king  looked  at  the  young  man  steadily.     Again 


^6  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

the  young  man  looked  steadily  at  him.  Perhaps  some  remem- 
brance of  his  generous  enemy  Saladin,  who  was  not  a  Chris- 
tian, came  int    the  mind  of  the  dymg  king. 

"Youth,"  he  said,  "  I  forgive  thee.     Go  unhurt !  " 

Then  turning  to  the  chief  officer  who  had  been  riding  in  his 
company  when  he  received   the   wound,  King  Richard  said, — 

"  Take  off  his  chains,  give  him  a  hundred  shillings,  and  let 
him  depart." 

He  sunk  down  on  his  couch,  and  a  dark  mist  seemed  in  his 
weakened  eyes  to  fill  the  tent  wherein  he  had  so  often  rested,  and 
he  died.  His  age  was  forty-two  .  he  had  reigned  ten  years. 
His  last  command  was  not  obeyed  ;  for  the  chief  officer  flayed 
Bertrand  de  Gourdon  alive,  and  hanged  him. 

There  is  an  old  tune  yet  known, — a  sorrowful  air  will  some- 
times outlive  many  generations  of  strong  men,  and  even  last 
longer  than  battle-axes  with  twenty  pounds  cf  steel  in  the  head, 
— by  which  this  king  is  said  to  have  been  discovered  in  his  cap- 
tivity,  Blondel,  a  favorite  minstrel  of  King  Richard,  as  the 
story  relates,  faithfully  seeking  his  royal  master,  went  singing 
it  outside  the  gloomy  walls  of  many  foreign  fortresses  and 
prisons,  until,  at  Ust,  he  heard  it  echoed  from  within  a  dungeon, 
and  knew  the  voice,  and  cried  out  in  ecstacy,  "  O  Richard  !  O 
my  king !  "  You  may  believe  it,  if  you  like  ;  it  would  be  easy 
to  believe  worse  things.  Richard  was  himself  a  mmstrel  and 
poet.  If  he  had  not  been  a  prince  too,  he  might  have  been  a 
better  man  perhaps,  and  might  have  gone  out  of  the  world  with 
Jess  bloodshed  and  waste  of  life  to  answer  for. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ENGLAND   UNDER    KING  JOHN,   CALLED   LACKLAND. 

At  two-and-thirty  years  of  age,  John  became  King  of  Eng- 
land. His  pr(  tty  little  nephew,  Arthur,  had  the  best  claim  to 
the  throne ;  but  John  seized  the  treasure,  and  made  fine 
promises  to  the  nobility,  and  got  himself  crowned  at  Westmin- 
ster within  a  few  w  eks  after  his  brother  Richard's  death.  I 
doubt  whether  the  crown  could  possibly  have  been  put  upon  the 
head  of  a  meaner  coward,  or  a  more  detestable  villain,  if 
England  had  be^n  searched  from  end  to  end  to  find  him  out. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  KING  JOHN.  ^y 

The  French  king,  Philip,  refused  to  acknowledge  the  right 
of  John  to  his  new 'dignity,  and  declared  in  favor  of  Arthur. 
You  must  not  suppose  that  he  had  any  generosity  of  feeling  for 
the  fatherless  boy ;  it  merely  suited  his  ambitious  schemes  to 
oppose  the  King  of  England.  So  John  and  the  French  king 
went  to  war  about  Arthur. 

He  was  a  handsome  boy,  at  that  time  only  twelve  years  old. 
He  was  not  born  when  his  father,  Geoffrey,  had  his  brainr 
trampled  out  at  the  tournament ;  and,  besides  the  misfortune 
of  never  having  known  a  father's  guidance  and  protection,  he 
had  the  additional  misfortune  to  have  a  foolish  mother  (Con- 
stance by  name),  lately  married  to  her  third  husband.  She 
took  Arthur,  upon  John's  accession,  to  the  French  king,  who 
pretended  to  be  very  much  his  friend,  and  who  made  him  a 
knight,  and  promised  him  his  daughter  in  marriage ;  but  who 
cared  so  little  about  him  in  reality,  that,  finding  it  his  interest 
to  make  peace  with  King  John  for  a  time,  he  did  so  without  the 
least  consideration  for  the  poor  little  prince,  and  heartlessly 
sacrificed  all  his  interests. 

Young  Arthur,  for  two  years  afterwards,  lived  quietly ;  and 
in  the  course  of  that  time  his  mother  died.  But  the  French 
king  then  finding  it  his  interest  to  quarrel  with  King  John 
again,  again  made  Arthur  his  pretence,  and  invited  the  orphan 
boy  to  court.  "  You  know  your  rights.  Prince,"  said  the  French 
king,  "  and  you  would  like  to  be  a  king.  Is  it  not  so  ? " 
*'  Truly,"  said  Prince  Arthur,  "  I  should  greatly  like  to  be  a 
king!"  "  Then,"  said  Philip,  "you  shall  have  two  hundred 
gentlemen  who  are  knights  of  mine,  and  with  them  you  shall 
go  to  win  back  the  provinces  belonging  to  you  of  which  your 
uncle,  the  usurping  King  of  England,  has  taken  possession.  I 
myself,  meanwhile,  will  head  a  force  against  him  in  Normandy." 
Poor  Arthur  was  flattered,  and  so  grateful,  that  he  signed  a 
treaty  with  the  crafty  French  king,  agreeing  to  consider  him  his 
superior  lord,  and  that  the  French  king  should  keep  for  himself 
whatever  he  could  take  from  King  John. 

Now  King  John  was  so  bad  in  all  ways,  and  King  Philip 
was  so  perfidious,  that  Arthur,  between  the  two,  might  as  well 
have  been  a  lamb  between  a  fox  and  a  wolf.  But,  being  so 
young,  he  was  ardent  and  flushed  with  hope  ;  and  when  the 
people  of  Brittany  (which  was  his  inheritance)  sent  him  five 
hundred  more  knights  and  five  thousand  foot-soldiers,  he  be- 
lieved  his  fortune  was  made.  The  people  of  Brittany  had  been 
fond  of  him  from  his  birth, and  liad  requested  that  he  might  be 
called  Arthur  in   remembrance  of  that  dimly  famous  English 


Qg  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Arthur  of  whom  I  told  you  early  in  this  book,  whom  they  be- 
lieved to  have  been  the  brave  friend  and  companion  of  an  old 
king  of  their  own.  They  had  tales  among  them  about  a  prophet 
called  Merlin  (of  the  same  old  time),  who  had  foretold  that 
their  own  king  should  be  restored  to  them  after  hundreds  of 
years  :  and  they  believed  that  the  prophecy  would  be  fulfilled 
in  Arthur  ;  that  the  time  would  come  when  he  would  rule  them 
with  a  crown  of  Brittany  upon  his  head,  and  when  neither  King 
of  France  nor  King  of  ICngland  would  have  any  power  over 
them.  When  Arthur  found  himself  riding  in  a  glittering  suit  of 
armor,  on  a  richly  caparisoned  horse,  at  the  head  of  his  train  of 
knights  and  soldiers,  he  began  to  believe  this  too,  and  to  con- 
sider old  Merlin  a  very  superior  prophet. 

He  did  not  know — how  could  he,  being  so  innocent  and  in- 
experienced ? — that  his  little  army  was  a  mere  nothing  against 
the  power  of  the  King  of  England.  The  French  king  knew  it ; 
but  the  poor  boy's  fate  was  little  to  him,  so  that  the  King  of 
England  was  worried  and  distressed.  Therefore,  King  Philip 
went  his  way  into  Normandy ;  and  Prince  Arthur  went  his  way 
towards  Mirebeau,  a  French  town  near  Poictiers,  both  very  well 
pleased. 

Prince  Arthur  went  to  attack  the  town  of  Mirebeau,  because 
his  grandmother  Eleanor,  who  has  so  often  made  her  appear- 
ance in  this  history  (and  who  had  always  been  his  mother's 
enemy),  was  living  there,  and  because  his  knights  said,  "  Prince, 
if  you  can  take  her  prisoner,  you  will  be  able  to  bring  the  king, 
your  uncle,  to  terms  !  "  But  she  was  not  to  be  easily  taken. 
She  was  old  enough  by  this  time, — eighty  ;  but  she  was  as  full 
of  stratagem  as  she  was  full  of  years  and  wickedness.  Receiv 
ing  intelligence  of  young  Arthur's  approach,  she  shut  herself  up 
in  a  high  tower,  and  encouraged  her  soldiers  to  defend  it  like 
men.  Prince  Arthur  with  his  little  army  besieged  the  high  tower. 
King  John,  hearing  how  matters  stood,  came  up  to  the  rescue 
with  his  army.  So  here  was  a  strange  family  party  :  the  boy- 
prince  besieging  his  grandmother,  and  his  uncle  besieging 
him  ! 

This  position  of  affairs  did  not  last  long.  One  summer 
night  King  John,  by  treachery,  got  his  men  into  the  town,  sur- 
prised Prince  Arthur's  force,  took  two  hundred  of  his  knights, 
and  seized  the  prince  himself  in  his  bed.  The  knights  were 
put  in  heavy  irons,  and  driven  away  in  open  carts  drawn  by 
bullocks,  to  various  dungeons,  where  they  were  most  inhumanly 
treated,  and  where  some  of  them  were  starved  to  death.  Prince 
Arthur  was  sent  to  the  Castle  of  Falaise. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  KING  JOHN.  g^ 

One  day  while  he  was  in  prison  at  that  castle,  mournfully 
thinking  it  strange  that  one  so  young  should  be  in  so  much 
trouble,  and  looking  out  of  the  small  window  in  the  deep  dark 
wall,  at  the  summer  sky  and  the  birds,  the  door  was  softly  opened, 
and  he  saw  his  uncle,  the  king,  standing  in  the  shadow  of  the 
archway,  looking  very  grim. 

"  Arthur,"  said  the  king,  with  his  wicked  eyes  more  on  the 
stone  floor  than  on  his  nephew,  "  will  you  not  trust  to  the  gen- 
tleness, the  friendship,  and  the  truthfulness  of  your  loving 
uncle  ? " 

"  I  will  tell  my  loving  uncle  that,"  replied  the  boy,  "  when 
he  does  me  right.  Let  him  restore  to  me  my  kingdom  of  Eng- 
land, and  then  come  to  me  and  ask  the  question." 

The  king  looked  at  him  and  went  out.  "  Keep  that  boy 
close  prisoner,"  said  he  to  the  warden  of  the  castle. 

Then  the  king  took  secret  counsel  with  the  worst  of  his 
nobles  how  the  prince  was  to  be  got  rid  of.  Some  said,  "  Put 
out  his  eyes  and  keep  him  in  prison,  as  Robert  of  Normandy 
was  kept."  Others  said,  "  Have  kim  stabbed."  Others,  "  Have 
him  hanged."     Others,  "  Have  him  poisoned." 

King  John  feeling  that  in  any  case,  whatever  was  done 
afterwards,  it  would  be  a  satisfaction  to  his  mind  to  have  those 
handsome  eyes  burnt  out,  that  had  looked  at  him  so  proudly 
while  his  own  royal  eyes  were  blinking  at  the  stone  floor,  sent 
certain  ruffians  to  Falaise  to  blind  the  boy  with  red-hot  irons. 
But  Arthur  so  pathetically  entreated  them,  and  shed  such  pite- 
ous tears,  and  so  appealed  to  Hubert  de  Bourg  (or  Burgh), 
the  warden  of  the  castle,  who  had  a  love  for  him,  and  was  an 
honorable,  tender  man,  that  Hubert  could  not  bear  it.  To  his 
eternal  honor,  he  prevented  the  torture  from  being  performed, 
and,  at  his  own  risk,  sent  the  savages  away. 

The  chafed  and  disappointed  king  bethought  himself  of  the 
stabbing  suggestion  next,  and,  with  his  shuffling  manner  and 
his  cruel  face,  proposed  it  to  one  William  de  Bray.  "  I  am  a 
gentleman,  and  not  an  executioner,"  said  William  de  Bray,  and 
left  the  presence  with  disdain. 

But  it  was  not  difficult  for  a  king  to  hire  a  murderer  in  those 
days.  King  John  found  one  for  his  money,  and  sent  him  down 
to  the  Castle  of  Falaise.  "  On  what  errand  dost  thou  come  ?  " 
said  Hubert  to  this  fellow.  "To  despatch  young  Arthur,"  he 
returned.  "Go back  to  him  who  sent  thee," answered  Hubert, 
*'  and  say  that  I  will  do  it." 

Kmg  John,  very  well  knowing  that  Hubert  would  never  do 
it,  but  that  he  courageously  sent  this  reply  to  save  the  prince 


loo  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

or  gain  time,  despatched  messengers  to  convey  the  young  pris- 
oner to  the  Castle  of  Rouen. 

Arthur  was  soon  forced  from  the  good  Hubert,  of  whom  he 
had  never  stood  in  greater  need  than  then,  carried  away  by 
night,  and  lodged  in  his  new  prison  ;  where,  through  his  grated 
window,  he  could  hear  the  deep  waters  of  the  River  Seine  rip- 
pling against  the  stone  wall  below. 

One  dark  night,  as  he  lay  sleeping,  dreaming  perhaps  of 
rescue  by  those  unfortunate  gentlemen  who  were  obscurely  suf- 
fering and  dying  in  his  cause,  he  was  roused,  and  bidden  by 
his  Jailer  to  come  down  the  staircase  to  the  foot  of  the  tower- 
He  hurriedly  dressed  himself  and  obeyed.  When  they  came 
to  the  bottom  of  the  winding  stairs,  and  the  night  air  from  the 
river  blew  upon  their  faces,  the  jailer  trod  upon  his  torch,  and 
put  it  out.  Then  Arthur,  in  the  darkness,  was  hurriedly  drawn 
into  a  solitary  boat.  And  in  that  boat  he  found  his  uncle  and 
one  other  man. 

He  knelt  to  them,  and  prayed  them  not  to  murder  him. 
Deaf  to  his  entreaties,  they  stabbed  him,  and  sunk  his  body  in 
the  river  with  heavy  stones.  When  the  spring  morning  broke, 
the  tower-door  was  closed,  the  boat  was  gone,  the  river  sparkled 
on  its  way,  and  never  more  was  any  trace  of  the  poor  boy  beheld 
by  mortal  eyes. 

The  news  of  this  atrocious  murder  being  spread  in  England 
awakened  a  hatred  of  the  king  (already  odious  for  his  many 
vices,  and  for  his  having  stolen  away  and  married  a  noble  lady 
while  his  ovv^n  wife  was  living)  that  never  slept  again  through 
his  whole  reign.  In  Brittany  the  indignation  was  intense. 
Arthur's  own  sister  Eleanor  was  in  the  power  of  John,  and  shut 
up  in  a  convent  at  Bristol ;  but  his  half-sister  Alice  was  in  Brit- 
tany. The  people  chose  her,  and  the  murdered  prince's  father- 
in-law,  the  last  husband  of  Constance,  to  represent  them,  and 
carried  their  fiery  complaints  to  King  Philip.  King  Philip 
summoned  King  John  (as  the  holder  of  territory  in  France) 
to  come  before  him  and  defend  himself.  King  John  refusing 
to  appear.  King  Philip  declared  him  false,  perjured,  and  guilty, 
and  again  made  war.  In  a  little  time,  by  conquering  the 
greater  part  of  his  French  territory.  King  Philip  deprived  him 
of  one  third  of  his  dominions.  And  through  all  the  fighting 
that  tcok  place.  King  John  was  always  found  either  to  be  eat- 
ing and  drinking  like  a  gluttonous  fool  when  the  danger  was  at 
a  distance,  or  to  be  running  away  like  a  beaten  cur  when  it  was 
near. 

You  might  suppose  that  when  he  was  losing  his  dominions 


ENGLAND  UNDER^  KING  'JOHN  to  I 

at  this  rate,  and  when  his  own  nobles  cared  so  little  for  him  or 
his  cause  that  they  plainly  refused  to  follow  his  banner  out  of 
England,  he  had  enemies  enough.  But  he  made  another  enemy 
of  the  pope,  which  he  did  in  this  way. 

The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  dying,  the  junior  monks  of 
that  place,  wishing  to  get  the  start  of  the  senior  monks  in  the 
appointment  of  his  successor,  met  together  at  midnight,  secretly 
elected  a  certain  Reginald,  and  sent  him  off  to  Rome  to  get 
the  pope's  approval.  The  senior  monks  and  the  king  soon 
finding  this  out,  and  being  very  angry  about  it,  the  junior  monks 
gave  way  ;  and  all  the  monks  together  elected  the  Bishop  of 
Norwich,  who  was  the  king's  favorite.  The  pope,  hearing  the 
whole  story,  declared  that  neither  election  would  do  for  him, 
and  that  he  elected  Stephen  Langton.  The  monks  submitting 
to  the  pope,  the  king  turned  them  all  out  bodily,  and  banished 
them  as  traitors.  The  pope  sent  three  bishops  to  the  king  to 
threaten  him  with  an  interdict.  The  king  told  the  bishops, 
that  if  any  interdict  were  laid  upon  his  kingdom,  he  would  tear 
out  the  eyes  and  cut  off  the  noses  of  all  the  monks  he  could  lay 
hold  of,  and  send  them  over  to  Rome  in  that  undecorated  state 
as  a  present  for  their  master.  The  bishops,  nevertheless,  soon 
published  the  interdict  and  fled. 

After  it  had  lasted  a  year,  the  pope  proceeded  to  his  next 
step,  which  was  excommunication.  King  John  was  declared 
excommunicated,  with  all  the  usual  ceremonies.  The  king  was 
so  incensed  at  this,  and  was  made  so  desperate  by  the  disaffec- 
tion of  his  barons  and  the  hatred  of  his  people,  that  it  is  said 
he  even  privately  sent  ambassadors  to  the  Turks  in  Spain, 
offering  to  renounce  his  religion,  and  hold  his  kingdom  of  them 
:f  they  would  help  him.  It  is  related  that  the  ambassadors 
were  admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  Turkish  emir  through  long 
lines  of  Moorish  guards,  and  that  they  found  the  emir  with  his 
eyes  seriously  fixed  on  the  pages  of  a  large  book,  from  which 
he  never  once  looked  up ;  that  they  gave  him  a  letter  from  the 
king,  containing  his  proposals,  and  were  gravely  dismissed  ; 
that  presently  the  emir  sent  for  one  of  them,  and  conjured  him 
by  his  faith  in  his  religion,  to  say  what  kind  of  man  the  King 
of  England  truly  was  ;  that  the  ambassador,  thus  pressed, 
replied,  that  the  King  of  England  was  a  false  tyrant,  against 
whom  his  own  subjects  would  soon  rise  ;  and  that  this  was  quite 
enough  for  the  emir. 

Money  being,  in  his  position,  the  next  best  thing  to  men, 
King  John  spared  no  means  of  getting  it.  He  set  on  foot 
another  oppressing  and  torturing  of  the  unhappy  Jews  (which 


t6i  4  Cmi^P^S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

was  quite  in  his  way),  and  invented  a  new  punishment  for  one 
wealthy  Jew  of  Bristol.  Until  such  time  as  that  Jew  should 
produce  a  certain  large  sum  of  money,  the  king  sentenced  him 
to  be  imprisoned,  and  every  day  to  have  one  tooth  violently 
wrenched  out  of  his  head  ;  beginning  with  the  double  teeth. 
For  seven  days,  the  oppressed  man  bore  the  daily  pain  and 
lost  the  daily  tooth ;  but  on  the  eighth  he  paid  the  money. 
With  the  treasure  raised  in  such  ways,  the  king  made  an  expe- 
dition into  Ireland,  where  some  English  nobles  had  revolted. 
It  was  one  of  the  very  few  places  from  which  he  did  not  run 
awav ;  because  no  resistance  was  shown.  He  made  another 
expedition  into  Wales,  whence  he  did  run  away  in  the  end,  but 
not  before  he  had  got  from  the  Welsh  people,  as  hostages, 
twenty-seven  young  men  of  the  best  families  ;  every  one  of 
whom  he  caused  to  be  slain  in  the  following  year. 

To  interdict  and  excommunication,  the  pope  now  added  his 
last  sentence,  deposition.     He  proclaimed  John  no  longer  king, 
absolved  all  his  subjects  from  their  allegiance,  and  sent  Stephen 
Langton  and  others  to  the  King  of  France  to   tell  him,  that,  if 
he  would  invade  England,  he  should  be  forgiven  all  his  sins  ; 
at  least,  should  be  forgiven  them  by  the  pope,  if  that  would  do. 
As  there  was  nothing  that  King  Philip  desired  more  than 
to  invade  England,  he  collected  a  great  army  at  Rouen,  and  a 
fleet  of  seventeen  hundred  ships  to  bring  them  over.     But  the 
English  people,  however  bitterly  they  hated  the  King,  were  not 
a  people  to  suffer  invasion  quietly.     They  flocked   to   Dover, 
where  the  English  standard  was,  in  such  great  numbers,  to  en- 
roll themselves  as  defenders  of  their  native  land,  that  there  were 
no  provisions  for  them  ;  and  the  king  could  only  select  and 
retain  sixty  thousand.     But  at  this  crisis  the  pope,  who  had 
his  own  reasons  for  objecting  to  either  King  John  or  King 
Philip  being  too  powerful,  interfered.     He  intrusted  a  legate, 
whose  name  was  Pandolf,  with  the  easy  task  of  frightening  King 
John.     He  sent  him  to  the  English  camp,  from  France,  to  ter- 
rify him  with  exaggerations  of  King  Philip's  power,  and  his 
own  weakness  in  the  discontent  of  the  English  barons  and  peo- 
ple.    Pandolf  discharged  his  commission  so  well,  that  King 
John,  in  a  wretched  panic,  consented  to  acknowledge  Stepb'^n 
Langton  ;  to  resign  his  kingdom  "  to   God,  St.  Peter,  and    '5t. 
Paul,"  which  meant  the  pope  ;  and  to  hold  it  ever  afterward    by 
the  pope's  leave,  on  payment  of  an  annual  sum  of  money.     Po 
this  shameful  contract  he  publicly  bound  himself  in  the  chv«  :ch 
of  the  Knights  Templars  at  Dover ;  where  he  laid  at  the  lega,;e's 
feet  a  part  of  the  tribute,  which  the  legate  haughtily  trampled 


ENGLAND  UNDER  KING  JOHi\  103 

upon.     But  they  do  say  that  this  was  merely  a  genteel  flourish^ 
and  that  he  was  afterwards  seen  to  pick  it  up  and  pocket  it. 

There  was  an  unfortunate  prophet,  of  the  name  of  Peter, 
who  had  greatly  increased  King  John's  terrors  by  predicting 
that  he  would  be  unknighted  (which  the  king  supposed  to  sig- 
nify that  he  would  die)  before  the  Feast  of  the  Ascension  should 
be  past.  That  was  the  day  after  this  humiliation.  When  the 
»ext  morning  came,  and  the  king,  who  had  been  trembling  all 
•lightjfound  himself  alive  and  safe,  he  ordered  the  prophet,  and 
his  son  too,  to  be  dragged  through  the  streets  at  the  tails  of 
horses,  and  then  hanged,  for  having  frightened  him. 

As  King  John  had  now  submitted,  the  pope,  to  King  Philip's 
great  astonishment,  took  him  under  his  protection,  and  informed 
King  Philip  that  he  found  he  could  not  give  him  leave  to  in- 
vade England.  The  angry  Philip  resolved  to  do  without  his 
leave  :  but  he  gained  nothing,  and  lost  much ;  for  the  English, 
commanded  by  the  Earl  of  Salisbury,  went  over  in  five  hundred 
ships,  to  the  French  coast,  before  the  French  fleet  had  sailed 
away  from  it,  and  utterly  defeated  the  whole. 

The  pope  then  took  off  his  three  sentences,  one  after  an- 
other, and  empowered  Stephen  Langton  publicly  to  receive 
King  John  into  the  favor  of  the  Church  again,  and  to  ask  him 
to  dinner.  The  king,  who  hated  Langton  with  all  his  might 
and  main, — and  with  reasons  too,  for  he  was  a  great  and  good 
man,  with  whom  such  a  king  could  have  no  sympathy, — pre- 
tended to  cry  and  be  very  grateful.  There  was  a  little  difficulty 
about  settling  how  much  the  king  should  pay  as  a  recompense 
to  the  clergy  for  the  losses  he  had  caused  them  :  but  the  end 
of  it  was,  that  the  superior  clergy  got  a  good  deal,  and  the  in- 
ferior clergy  got  little  or  nothing  \  which  has  also  happened 
since  King  John's  time,  I  believe. 

When  all  these  matters  were  arranged,  the  king  in  his  tri 
umph  became  more  fierce  and  false  and  insolent  to  all  around 
him  than  he  had  ever  been.  An  alliance  of  sovereigns  against 
King  Philip  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  landing  an  army  in 
France,  with  which  he  even  took  a  town  !  but  on  the  French 
king's  gaining  a  great  victory,  he  ran  away,  of  course,  and  made 
a  truce  for  five  years. 

And  now  the  time  approached  when  he  was  to  be  still  fur- 
ther humbled,  and  made  to  feel,  if  he  could  feel  anything,  what 
a  wretched  creature  he  was.  Of  all  men  in  the  world,  Stephen 
Langton  seemed  raised  up  by  Heaven  to  oppose  and  subdue 
him.  When  he  ruthlessly  burnt  and  de-^^troyed  the  property  of 
his  own  subjects,  because  their  lords,  the  barons,  would  not 


104  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

serve  him  abroad,  Stephen  Langton  fearlessly  reproved  and 
threatened  him.  When  he  swore  to  restore  the  laws  of  King 
Edward,  or  the  laws  of  King  Henry  the  First,  Stephen  Langfon 
knew  his  falsehood,  and  pursued  him  through  all  his  evasions. 
When  the  barons  met  at  the  abbey  of  St.  Edmund's  Bury,  to 
consider  their  wrongs  and  the  king's  oppressions,  Stephen  Lang- 
ton  roused  them  by  his  fervid  words  to  demand  a  solemn  char- 
ter of  rights  and  liberties  from  their  perjured  master,  and  ' 
swear,  one  by  one,  on  the  high  altar,  that  they  would  havi'  , 
or  would  wage  war  against  him  to  the  death.  When  the  J  jg 
hid  himself  in  London  from  the  barons,  and  was  at  last  obLged 
to  receive  them,  they  told  him  roundly  they  would  not  believe 
him  unless  Stephen  Langton  became  a  surety  that  he  would 
keep  his  word.  When  he  took  the  cross  to  invest  himself  with 
some  interest,  and  belong  to  something  that  was  received  with 
favor,  Stephen  Langton  was  still  immovable.  When  he  ap- 
pealed to  the  pope,  and  the  pope  wrote  to  Stephen  Langton  in 
behalf  of  his  new  favorite,  Stephen  Langton  was  deaf  even  to 
the  pope  himself,  and  saw  before  him  nothing  but  the  welfare 
of  England  and  the  crimes  of  the  English  king. 

At  Easter-time,  the  barons  assembled  at  Stamford,  in  Lin- 
colnshire, in  proud  array,  and  marching  near  to  Oxford,  where 
the  king  was,  delivered  into  the  hands  of  Stephen  Langton  and 
two  others  a  list  of  grievances.  "  And  these,"  they  said,  "  he 
must  redress,  or  we  will  do  it  for  ourselves  !  "  When  Stephen 
Langton  told  the  king  as  much,  and  read  the  list  to  him,  he 
went  half  mad  with  rage.  But  that  did  him  no  more  good  than 
his  afterwards  trying  to  pacify  the  barons  with  lies.  They 
called  themselves  and  their  followers,  "  The  army  of  God  and 
the  holy  Church."  Marching  through  the  country,  with  the 
people  thronging  to  them  everywhere  (except  at  Northampton, 
where  they  failed  in  an  attack  upon  the  castle),  they  at  last 
triumphantly  set  up  their  banner  in  London  itself,  whither  the 
whole  land,  tired  of  the  tyrant,  seemed  to  flock  to  join  them. 
Seven  knights  alone  of  all  the  knights  in  England,  remained 
with  the  king ;  who,  reduced  to  this  strait,  at  last  sent  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke  to  the  barons  to  say  that  he  approved  of  every- 
thing, and  would  meet  them  to  sign  their  charter  when  they 
would.  "  Then,"  said  the  barons,  "let  the  day  be  the  15th  of 
June,  and  the  place  Runny-Mead." 

On  Monday  the  15th  of  June,  1214,  the  king  came  from 
Windsor  Castle,  and  the  barons  came  from  the  town  of  Staines, 
and  they  met  on  Runny-mead,  which  is  still  a  pleasant  meadow 
by  the  Thames,  where  rushes  grow  in  the  clear  water  of  the 


ENGLAND  W:DER  KIN-G  JOim.  105 

Winding  river,  and  its  banks  are  green  with  grass  and  trejs. 
On  the  side  of  the  barons,  came  the  general  of  their  army, 
Robert  Fitz-Walter,  and  a  great  concourse  of  the  nobility  of 
England.  With  the  king  came,  in  all,  some  four-and-twenty 
persons  of  any  note,  most  of  whom  despised  him,  and  were 
merely  his  advisers  in  form.  On  that  great  day,  and  in  that 
great  company,  the  king  signed  Magna  Charta, — the  great  char- 
ter of  England, — by  which  he  pledged  himself  to  maintain  the 
C.'hurch  in  its  rights,  to  relieve  the  barons  of  oppressive  obli- 
gations as  vassals  of  the  crown  (of  which  the  barons,  in  their 
turn,  pledged  themselves  to  relieve  their  vassals,  the  people)  ; 
to  respect  the  liberties  of  London  and  all  other  cities  and  bor- 
oughs ;  to  protect  foreign  merchants  who  came  to  England  ;  to 
imprison  no  man  without  a  fair  trial  ;  and  to  sell,  delay,  or  deny 
justice  to  none.  As  the  barons  knew  his  falsehood  well,  they 
further  required,  as  their  securities,  that  he  should  send  out  of 
his  kingdom  all  his  foreign  troops  ;  that  for  two  months  they 
should  hold  possession  of  the  city  of  London,  and  Stephen 
Langton  of  the  tower  ;  and  that  five-and-twenty  of  their  body, 
chosen  by  themselves,  should  be  a  lawful  committee  to  watch 
the  keeping  of  the  charter,  and  to  make  war  upon  him  if  he 
broke  it. 

All  this  he  was  obliged  to  yield.  He  signed  the  charter 
with  a  smile,  and,  if  he  could  have  looked  agreeable,  would 
have  done  so,  as  he  departed  from  the  splendid  assembly. 
When  he  got  home  to  Windsor  Castle,  he  was  quite  a  madman 
in  his  helpless  fury.  And  he  broke  the  charter  immediately 
afterwards. 

He  sent  abroad  for  foreign  soldiers,  and  sent  to  the  pope  for 
help,  and  plotted  to  take"  London  by  surprise,  while  the  barons 
should  be  holding  a  great  tournament  at  Stanford,  which  they 
had  agreed  to  hold  there  as  a  celebration  of  the  charter.  The 
barons,  however,  found  him  out,  and  put  it  off.  Then,  when 
the  barons  desired  to  see  him,  and  tax  him  with  his  treachery, 
he  made  numbers  of  appointments  with  ihem,  and  kept  none, 
and  shifted  from  place  to  place,  and  was  constantly  sneaking 
and  skulking  about.  At  last  he  appeared  at  Dover,  to  join  his 
foreign  soldiers,  of  whom  numbers  came  into  his  pay  ;  and  with 
them  he  besieged  and  took  Rochester  Castle,  which  was  oc- 
cupied by  knights  and  soldiers  of  the  barons.  He  would  have 
hanged  them,  every  one  ;  but  the  leader  of  the  foreign  soldiers, 
fearful  of  what  the  English  people  might  afterwards  do  to  him, 
interfered  to  save  the  knights :  therefore  the  king  was  fain  to 
satisfy  his  vengeance  v/ith  the  death  of  all  the  common  men. 


io6  A  CtTTjLZ>s  f/lsTORY  O^^NGLAND 

Then  he  sent  the  Earl  of  Salisbury,  with  one  portion  of  his 
army,  to  ravage  the  eastern  part  of  his  dominions,  while  he 
carried  fire  and  slaughter  into  the  northern  part ;  torturing, 
plundering,  killing,  and  inflicting  every  possible  cruelty  upon 
the  people  ;  and  every  morning  setting  a  worthy  example  to  his 
men  by  setting  fire,  with  his  own  monster-hands,  to  the  house 
where  he  had  slept  last  night.  Nor  was  this  all  ;  for  the  pope, 
coming  to  the  aid  of  his  precious  friend,  laid  the  kingdom  un- 
der an  interdict  again,  because  the  people  took  part  with  the 
barons  It  did  not  much  matter  ;  for  the  people  had  grown  so 
used  to  it  now  that  they  had  begun  to  think  nothing  about  it. 
It  occurred  to  them, — perhaps  to  Stephen  Langton  too, — that 
they  could  keep  their  churches  open,  and  ring  their  bells,  with- 
out the  pope's  permission  as  well  as  with  it.  So  they  tried  the 
experiment,  and  found  it  succeeded  perfectly. 

It  being  now  impossible  to  bear  the  country,  as  a  wilderness 
of  cruelty^  or  longer  to  hold  any  terms  with  such  a  forsworn 
outlaw  of  a  king,  the  barons  sent  to  Louis,  son  of  the  French 
monarch,  to  offer  him  the  English  crown  Caring  as  little  for 
the  pope's  excommunication  of  him  if  he  accepted  the  offer,  as 
it  is  possible  his  father  may  have  cared  for  tj^e  pope's  forgive- 
ness of  his  sins,  he  landed  at  Sandwich  (King  John  immediately 
running  away  from  Dover,  where  he  happened  to  be),  and  went 
on  to  London.  The  Scottish  king,  with  whom  many  of  the 
Northern  English  lords  had  taken  refuge,  numbers  of  the  foreign 
soldiers,  numbers  of  the  barons,  and  numbers  of  the  people 
went  over  to  him  every  day  ;  King  John  the  while  continually 
running  away  in  all  directions.  The  career  of  Louis  was 
checked,  however,  by  the  suspicions  of  the  barons,  founded  on 
the  dying  declaration  of  a  French  lord,  that  when  the  kingdom 
was  conquered  he  was  sworn  to  banish  them  as  traitors,  and  to 
give  their  estates  to  some  of  his  own  nobles.  Rather  than 
suffer  this,  some  of  the  barons  hesitated ;  others  even  went 
over  to  King  John. 

It  seemed  to  be  the  turning-point  of  King  John's  fortunes  , 
for  in  his  savage  and  murderous  course  he  had  now  taken  some 
towns  and  met  with  some  successes.  But  happily  for  England 
and  humanity,  his  death  was  near.  Crossing  a  dangerous 
quicksand,  called  the  Wash,  not  very  far  from  Wisbeach,  the 
tide  came  up  and  nearly  drowned  his  army.  He  and  his 
soldiers  escaped ;  but  looking  back  from  the  shore  when  he 
was  safe,  he  saw  the  roaring  water  sweep  down  in  torrents, 
overturn  the  wagons,  horses,  and  men  that  carried  his  treasure, 
and  ingulf  thenv  in  a  raging  whirlpool  from  which  nothing  could 
be  cil^livered. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRi"  TlfE  THIRD. 


107 


Cursing  and  swearing,  and  gnawing  his  fingers,  he  went  on 
to  Swinestead  Abbey,  where  the  monks  set  before  him  quanti- 
ties of  pears  and  peaches  and  new  cider, — some  say  poison  too, 
but  there  is  very  little  reason  to  suppose  so, — of  which  he  ate 
and  drank  \\\  an  immoderate  and  beastly  way.  All  night  he  lay 
ill  of  a  burning  fever,  and  haunted  with  horrible  fears.  Next 
day  they  put  him  in  a  horse-litter,  and  carried  him  to  Sleaford 
Castle,  where  he  passed  another  night  of  pain  and  horror. 
Next  day  they  carried  him,  with  greater  difficulty  than  on  the 
day  before,  to  the  Castle  of  Newark  upon  Trent ;  aixl  there, 
on  the  18th  of  October,  in  the  forty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  and 
the  seventeenth  of  his  vile  reign,  was  an  end  of  this  miserable 
brute. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  THIRD,  CALLED  HENRY  THE 
THIRD  OF  WINCHESTER. 

If  any  of  the  English  barons  remembered  tne  murdered 
Arthur's  sister,  Eleanor,  the  fair  maid  of  Brittany,  shut  up  in 
her  convent  at  Bristol,  none  among  them  spoke  of  her  now,  or 
maintained  her  right  to  the  crown.  The  dead  usurper's  eldest 
boy,  Henry  by  name,  was  taken  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  the 
marshal  of  England,  to  the  city  of  Gloucester,  and  there 
crowned  in  great  haste  when  he  was  only  ten  years  old.  As 
the  crown  itself  had  been  lost  with  the  king's  treasun  'a  the 
raging  water,  and,  as  there  was  no  time  to  make  another,  they 
put  a  circle  of  plain  gold  upon  his  head  instead.  "We  have 
been  the  enemies  of  this  child's  father,"  said  Lord  Pembroke, 
a  good  and  true  gentleman,  to  the  few  lords  who  were  present, 
"  and  he  merited  our  ill-will ;  but  the  child  himself  is  innocent, 
and  his  youth  demands  our  friendship  and  protection."  Those 
lords  felt  tenderly  towards  the  little  boy,  remembering  their 
own  young  children  ;  and  they  bowed  their  heads,  and  said, 
"  Long  live  King  Henry  the  Third  !  " 

Next,  a  great  council  met  at  Bristol,  revised  Magna  Charta, 
and  made  Lord  Pembroke  Regent  or  Protector  of  England,  as 
the  king  was  too  young  to  reign  alone.  The  next  thing  to  be 
done  was  to  get  rid  of  Prince  Louis  of  France,  and  to  win  over 
khose  English  barons  who  were  still  ranged  under  his  bannar 


to8  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

He  was  strong  in  many  parts  of  England,  and  in  London  Itself  ; 
and  he  held,  among  other  places,  a  certain  castle  called  the 
Castle  of  Mount  Sorel,  in  Leicestershire.  To  this  fortress, 
after  some  skirmishing  and  truce-making.  Lord  Pembroke  laid 
siege.  Louis  despatched  an  army  of  six  hundred  knights  and 
twenty  thousand  soldiers  to  relieve  it.  Lord  Pembroke,  who 
was  not  strong  enough  for  such  a  force,  retired  with  all  his 
men.  The  army  of  the  French  prince,  which  had  marched 
there  with  fire  and  plunder,  marched  away  with  fire  and  plun- 
der, and  came,  in  a  boastful,  swaggering  manner,  to  Lincoln. 
The  town  submitted  ;  but  the  castle  in  the  town,  held  by 
a  brave  widow  lady,  named  Nichola  de  Camville  (whose  prop- 
erty it  was),  made  such  a  sturdy  resistance,  that  the  French 
count  in  command  of  the  army  of  the  French  prince  found  it 
necessary  to  besiege  this  castle.  While  he  was  thus  engaged, 
word  was  brought  to  him  that  Lord  Pembroke,  with  four  hun- 
dred knights,  two  hundred  and  fifty  men  with  cross-bows,  and  a 
stout  force  both  of  horse  and  foot,  was  marching  towards  him. 
*'  What  care  1 1 "  said  the  French  count.  "  The  Englishman  is 
not  so  mad  as  to  attack  me  and  my  great  army  in  a  walled 
town  !  "  But  the  Englishman  did  it  for  all  that,  and  did  it,  not 
so  madly  but  so  wisely,  that  he  decoyed  the  great  army  into  the 
narrow,  ill-paved  lanes  and  by-ways  of  Lincoln,  where  its  horse- 
soldiers  could  not  ride  in  any  strong  body  ;  and  there  he  made 
such  havoc  with  them,  that  the  whole  force  surrendered  them- 
selves prisoners,  except  the  count,  who  said  that  he  would  never 
yield  to  an  English  traitor  alive,  and  accordingly  got  killed. 
The  end  of  this  victory,  which  the  English  called,  for  a  joke, 
the  Fair  of  Lincoln,  was  the  usual  one  in  those  times, — the 
common  men  were  slain  without  any  mercy,  and  the  knights 
and  gentlemen  paid  ransom  and  went  home. 

The  wife  of  Louis,  the  fair  Blanche  of  Castile,  dutifully 
equipped  a  fleet  of  eighty  good  ships,  and  sent  it  over  from 
France  to  her  husband's  aid.  An  English  fleet  of  forty  ships, 
some  good  and  some  bad,  gallantly  met  them  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Thames,  and  took  or  sunk  sixty-five  in  one  fight.  This 
great  loss  put  an  end  to  the  French  prince's  hopes.  A  treaty 
was  made  at  Lambeth,  in  virtue  of  which  the  English  barons 
who  had  remained  attached  to  his  cause  returned  to  their  allegi- 
ance ;  and  it  was  engaged  on  both  sides  that  the  prince  and 
all  his  troops  should  retire  peacefully  to  France.  It  was  time 
to  go ;  for  war  had  made  him  so  poor  that  he  was  obliged  to 
borrow  money  from  the  citizens  of  London  to  pay  his  expenses 
home. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  THIRD.  109 

Lord  Pembroke  afterwards  applied  himself  to  governing 
the  country  justly,  and  to  healing  the  quarrels  and  disturb- 
ances that  had  risen  among  men  in  the  days  of  the  bad  King 
John.  He  caused  Magna  Charta  to  be  still  more  improved, 
and  so  amended  the  Forest  Laws  that  a  peasant  was  no  longer 
put  to  death  for  killing  a  stag  in  a  royal  forest,  but  was  only 
imprisoned.  It  would  have  been  well  for  England  if  it  could 
have  had  so  good  a  protector  many  years  longer ;  but  that  was 
not  to  be.  Within  three  years  after  the  young  king's  corona- 
tion, Lord  Pembroke  died  ;  and  you  may  see  his  tomb  at  this 
day,  in  the  old  Temple  Church  in  London. 

The  protectorship  was  now  divided.  Peter  de  Roches, 
whom  King  John  had  made  Bishop  of  Winchester,  was  in- 
trusted with  the  care  of  the  person  of  the  young  sovereign  ;  and 
the  exercise  ot  the  royal  authority  was  confided  to  Earl  Hu- 
bert de  Burgh.  These  two  personages  had  from  the  first  no 
liking  for  each  other,  and  soon  became  enemies.  When 
the  young  king  was  declared  of  age,  Peter  de  Roches,, 
finding  that  Hubert  increased  in  power  and  favor,  retired  dis- 
contentedly, and  went  abroad.  For  nearly  ten  years  after- 
wards Hubert  had  full  sway  alone. 

But  ten  years  is  a  long  time  to  hold  the  favor  of  a  king. 
This  king,  too,  as  he  grew  up,  showed  a  strong  resemblance  of 
his  father,  in  feebleness,  inconsistency,  and  irresolution.  The 
best  that  can  be  said  of  him  is  that  he  was  not  cruel.  De 
Roches  coming  home  again  after  ten  years,  and  being  a  nov- 
elty, the  king  began  to  favor  him  and  to  look  coldly  on  Hu- 
bert. Wanting  money  besides,  and  having  made  Hubert  rich 
he  began  to  dislike  Hubert.  At  last  he  was  made  to  believe, 
or  pretend  to  believe,  that  Hubert  had  misappropriated  some 
of  the  royal  treasure ;  and  ordered  him  to  furnish  an  account 
of  all  he  had  done  in  his  administration.  Besides  which,  the 
foolish  charge  was  brought  against  Hubert  that  he  had  made 
himself  the  king's  favorite  by  magic.  Hubert  very  well  knowing; 
that  he  could  never  defend  himself  against  such  nonsense,  and 
that  his  old  enemy  must  be  determined  on  his  ruin,  instead  of 
answering  the  charges,  fled  to  Merton  Abbey.  Then  the  king, 
in  a  violent  passion,  sent  for  the  Mayor  of  London,  and  said 
to  the  Mayor,  "  Take  twenty  thousand  citizens,  and  drag  me 
Hubert  de  Burgh  out  of  that  abbey,  and  bring  him  here." 
The  Mayor  posted  off  to  do  it ;  but  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin 
(who  was  a  friend  of  Hubert's)  warning  the  king  that  an  abbey 
was  a  sacred  place,  and  that  if  he  committed  any  violence 
there  he  must  answer  for  it  to  the  Church,  the  king  changed 


no  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

his  mind,  and  called  the  Mayor  back,  and  declared  that  Hu- 
bert should  have  four  months  to  prepare  his  defence,  and 
should  be  safe  and  free  during  that  time. 

Hubert,  who  relied  upon  the  king's  word,  though  I  think 
he  was  old  enough  to  have  known  better,  came  out  of  Met  Ion 
Abbey  upon  these  conditions,  and  journeyed  away  to  see  his 
wife,  a  Scottish  princess,  who  was  then  at  St.  Edmunds-Bury. 

Almost  as  soon  as  he  had  departed  from  the  sanctuary,  his 
enemies  persuaded  the  weak  king  to  send  out  one  Sir  Godfrey 
de  Crancumb,  who  commanded  three  hundred  vagabonds  called 
the  Black  Band,  with  orders  to  seize  him.  They  came  up  with 
him  at  a  little  town  in  Essex  called  Brentwood,  when  he  was 
in  bed.  He  leaped  out  of  bed,  got  out  of  the  house,  fled  to 
the  church,  ran  up  to  the  altar,  and  laid  his  hand  upon  the 
cross.  Sir  Godfrey  and  the  Black  Band  caring  neither  for 
church,  altar,  nor  cross,  dragged  him  forth  to  the  church  door, 
with  their  drawn  swords  flashing  around  his  head,  and  sent  for 
a  smith  to  rivet  a  set  of  chains  upon  him.  When  the  smith  (I 
wish  I  knew  his  name)  was  brought,  all  dark  and  swarthy  with 
the  smoke  of  his  forge,  and  panting  with  the  speed  he  had 
made,  and  the  Black  Band  falling  aside  to  show  him  the  pris 
oner,  cried  with  a  ioud  uproar,  "  Make  the  fetters  heavy,  make 
them  strong !  "  the  smith  dropped  upon  his  knee, — but  not  to 
the  Black  Band. — and  said,  "  This  is  the  brave  Earl  Hubert 
de  Burgh,  who  fought  at  Dover  Castle,  and  destroyed  the 
French  fleet,  and  has  done  his  country  much  good  service. 
You  may  kill  me  if  you  like,  but  I  will  never  make  a  chain  for 
Earl  Hubert  de  Burgh  !  " 

The  Black  Band  never  blushed,  or  they  might  have  blushed 
at  this.  They  knocked  the  smith  about  from  one  to  another, 
and  swore  at  him,  and  tied  the  earl  on  horseback,  undressed 
as  he  was,  and  carried  him  off  to  the  Tower  of  London.  The 
bishops,  however,  were  so  indignant  at  the  violation  of  the 
sanctuary  of  the  Church,  that  the  frightened  king  soon  ordered 
the  Black  Band  to  take  him  back  again  ;  at  the  same  time 
commanding  the  Sheriff  of  Essex  to  prevent  his  escaping  out 
of  Brentwood  Church.  Well,  the  sheriff  dug  a  deep  trench  all 
round  the  church  and  erected  a  high  fence,  and  watched  their 
church  night  and  day ;  the  Black  Band  and  their  captain 
watched  it  too,  like  three  hundred  and  one  black  wolves. 
For  thirty-nine  days,  Hubert  de  Burgh  remained  within.  At 
length,  upon  the  fortieth  day,  cold  and  hunger  were  too  much 
for  him ;  and  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  Black  Band,  who  car- 
ried him  off,  for  the  second  time,  to  the  Tower.     When  his 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  TffR  THIRD,  uj 

trial  came  on  he  refused  to  plead  ;  but  at  last  it  was  arranged 
that  he  should  give  up  all  the  royal  lands  which  had  been  be- 
stowed upon  him,  and  should  be  kept  at  the  Castle  of  Devizes, 
in  what  was  called  "  free  prison,"  in  charge  of  four  knights 
appointed  by  four  lords.  There  he  remained  almost  a  year, 
until,  learning  that  a  follower  of  his  old  enemy,  the  bishop  was 
made  keeper  of  the  castle,  and  fearing  that  he  might  be  killed 
by  treachery,  he  climbed  the  ramparts  one  dark  night,  dropped 
from  the  top  of  the  high  castle  wall  mto  the  moat,  and  coming 
safely  to  the  ground,  took  refuge  m  another  Church.  From 
this  place  he  was  delivered  by  a  party  of  horse  despatched  to 
his  help  by  some  nobles,  who  were  by  this  time  in  revolt 
against  the  king,  and  assembled  in  Wales.  He  was  finally 
pardoned,  and  restored  to  his  estates ;  but  he  lived  privately, 
and  never  more  aspired  to  a  high  post  in  the  realm,  or  to  a  high 
place  in  the  king's  favor.  And  thus  end — more  happily  than 
the  stories  of  many  favorites  of  kings — the  adventures  of  Eah 
Hubert  de  Burgh. 

The  nobles  who  had  risen  in  revolt  were  stirred  up  to  rebel- 
lion by  the  overbearing  conduct  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester 
who,  finding  that  the  king  secretly  hated  the  Great  Charter 
which  had  been  forced  from  his  father,  did  his  utmost  to  con- 
firm him  in  that  dislike,  and  in  the  preference  he  showed  to 
foreigners  over  the  English,  Of  this  and  of  his  even  publicly 
declaring  that  the  barons  of  England  were  inferior  to  those  of 
France,  the  English  lords  complamed  with  such  bitterness,  that 
the  king,  finding  them  well  supported  by  the  clergy,  became 
frightened  for  his  throne,  aif^  sent  away  the  bishop  and  all  his 
foreign  associates.  On  his  marriage,  however,  with  Eleanor,  a 
French  lady,  the  daughter  of  the  Count  of  Provence,  he  openly 
favored  the  foreigners  again  ;  and  so  many  of  his  wife's  rela- 
tions came  over,  and  -made  such  an  immense  family  party  at 
court,  and  got  so  many  good  things,  and  pocketed  so  much 
money,  and  were  so  high  with  the  English  whose  money  they 
pocketed,  that  the  bolder  English  barons  murmured  openly 
about  a  clause  there  was  in  the  Great  Charter  which  provided 
for  the  banishment  of  unreasonable  favorites.  But  the  foreign- 
ers only  laughed  disdainfully,  and  said,  "What  are  your  Eng- 
lish laws  to  us  ; 

King  Philip  of  France  had  died,  and  had  been  succeeded  by 
Prince  Louis,  who  had  also  died  after  a  short  reign  of  three 
years,  and  had  been  succeeded  by  his  son  of  the  same  name, — 
so  moderate  and  just  a  man  that  he  was  not  the  least  in  the 
world  like  a  king,   as   kings   went.     Isabella,   King   Henr}''s 


112  A  CHILD'S  HIS  TOR  V  OF  ENGLAND. 

mother,  wished  very  much  (for  a  certain  spite  she  had)  that 
England  should  make  war  against  this  king  ;  and,  as  King 
Henry  was  a  mere  puppet  in  anybody's  hands  who  knew  how 
to  manage  his  feebleness,  she  easily  carried  her  point  with  him. 
But  the  Parliament  were  determined  to  give  him  no  money  for 
such  a  war.  So  to  defy  the  Parliament,  he  packed  up  thirty 
large  casks  of  silver, — I  don't  know  how  he  got  so  much  j  I 
daresay  he  screwed  it  out  of  the  miserable  Jews, — and  put  them 
aboard  ship,  and  went  away  himself  to  carry  war  into  France, 
.accompanied  by  his  mother  and  his  brother  Richard,  Earl  of 
Cornwall,  who  was  rich  and  clever.  But  he  only  got  well 
beaten,  and  came  home. 

The  sood  humor  of  the  Parliament  was  not  restored  bv  this. 
They  reproached  the  King  with  wasting  the  public  money  to 
make  greedy  foreigners  rich,  and  were  so  stern  wdth  him,  and 
so  determined  not  to  let  him  have  more  of  it  to  waste  if  they 
could  help  it,  that  he  was  at  his  wit's  end  for  some  and  tried 
so  shamelessly  to  get  all  he  could  from  his  subjects,  by  ex- 
cuses or  by  force,  that  the  people  used  to  say  the  king  was  the 
sturdiest  beggar  in  England.  He  took  the  cross,  thinking  to 
get  some  money  by  that  means  ;  but,  as  it  was  very  w^ell  known 
that  he  never  meant  to  go  on  a  crusade,  he  got  none.  In  all 
this  contention,  the  Londoners  were  particularly  keen  against 
the  king,  and  the  king  hated  them  warmly  in  return.  Hating 
or  loving,  however,  made  no  difference ;  he  continued  in  the 
same  condition  for  nine  or  ten  years,  when,  at  last,the  barons 
said,  that,  if  he  would  solemnly  confirm  their  liberties  afresh, 
the  Parliament  would  vote  him  a  large  sum. 

As  he  readily  consented,  there  was  a  great  meeting  held  in 
Westminster  Hall,  one  pleasant  day  in  May,  when  all  the 
clergy,  dressed  in  their  robes,  and  holding  every  one  of  them  a 
burning  candle  in  his  hand,  stood  up  (the  barons  being  also 
there)  while  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  read  the  sentence  of 
excommunication  against  any  man,  and  all  men,  who  should 
henceforth,  in  any  way  infringe  the  Great  Charter  of  the  king- 
dom. When  he  had  done,  they  all  put  out  their  burning  can- 
dles with  a  curse  upon  the  soul  of  any  one,  and  every  one,  who 
should  merit  that  sentence.  The  king  concluded  with  an  oath 
to  keep  the  charter,  "  As  I  am  a  man,  as  I  am  a  Christian,  as 
I  am  a  knight,  as  1  am  a  king  !  " 

It  was  easy  to  make  oaths,  and  easy  to  break  them  ;  and  the 
king  did  both,  as  his  father  had  done  before  him.  He  took  to 
his  old  courses  again  when  he  was  supplied  with  money,  and 
soon  cured  of  their  weakner,s    the  few  who    had  ever   really 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  THIRD.  n, 

SI) 

trusted  him.  When  his  money  was  gone,  and  he  was  once 
more  borrowing  and  begging  everywhere  with  a  meanness  wor- 
thy of  his  nature,  he  got  into  a  difficulty  with  the  pope  re- 
specting \\\t  crown  of  Sicily,  which  the  pope  said  he  had  a  right 
to  give  away,  and  which  he  offered  to  King  Henry  for  his  sec- 
ond son,  Prince  Edmund.  But  if  you  or  I  give  away  what  we 
have  not  got,  and  what  belongs  to  somebody  else,  it  is  likely 
that  the  person  to  whom  we  give  it  will  have  some  trouble  in 
taking  it.  It  was  exactly  so  in  this  case.  It  was  necessary  to 
conquer  the  Sicilian  crown  before  it  could  be  put  upon  young 
Edmund's  head.  It  could  not  be  conquered  without  money. 
The  pope  ordered  the  clergy  to  raise  money.  The  clergy, 
however,  were  not  so  obedient  to  him  as  usual ;  they  had  been 
disputing  with  him  for  some  time  about  his  unjust  preference 
of  Italian  priests  in  England ;  and  they  had  begun  to  doubt 
whether  the  king's  chaplain,  whom  he  allowed  to  be  paid  for 
preaching  in  seven  hundred  churches,  could  possibly  be,  even 
by  the  pope's  favor,  in  seven  hundred  places  at  once.  "  The 
pope  and  the  king  together,"  said  the  Bishop  of  London,  "  may 
take  the  mitre  off  my  head ;  but  if  they  do,  they  will  find  that 
I  shall  put  on  a  soldier's  helmet.  I  pay  nothing."  The  Bishop 
of  Worcester  was  as  bold  as  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  would 
pay  nothing  either.  Such  sums  as  the  more  timid  or  more 
helpless  of  the  clergy  did  raise  were  squandered  away,  without 
doing  any  good  to  the  king,  or  bringing  the  Sicilian  crown  an 
inch  nearer  to  Prince  Edmund's  head.  The  end  of  the  busi 
ness  was,  that  the  pope  gave  the  crown  to  the  brother  of  tht 
King  of  France  (who  conquered  it  for  himself),  and  sent  the 
King  of  England  in  a  bill  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  for 
the  expenses  of  not  having  won  it. 

The  king  was  now  so  much  distressed  that  we  might  almost 
pity  him,  if  it  were  possible  to  pity  a  king  so  shabby  and  ridic- 
ulous. His  clever  brother  Richard  had  bought  the  title  of  the 
King  of  the  Romans  from  the  German  people,  and  was  no 
longer  near  him  to  help  him  with  advice.  The  clergy,  resisting 
the  very  pope,  were  in  alliance  with  the  barons.  The  barons 
were  headed  by  Simon  de  jSIontfort,  Earl  of  Leicester,  married 
to  King  Henry's  sister,  and,  though  a  foreigner  himself,  the 
most  popular  man  in  England  against  the  foreign  favorites. 
When  the  king  next  met  his  Parliament,  the  barons,  led  by  this 
earl,  came  before  him,  armed  from  head  to  foot,  and  cased  in 
armor.  When  the  Parliament  again  assembled,  in  a  month's 
time,  at  Oxford,  this  earl  was  at  their  head ;  and  the  king  was 
obliged  to  consent,  on  oath,  to  what  was  called  a  Committee  of 


114  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND^ 

Government,  consisting  of  twenty-four  members,  twelve  chosen 
by  the  barons,  and  twelve  chosen  by  himself. 

But  at  a  good  time  for  him,  his  brother  Richard  came  back. 
Richard's  first  act  (the  barons  would  not  admit  him  into  Eng- 
land on  other  terms)  was  to  swear  to  be  faithful  to  the  Commit- 
tee of  Government,  which  he  immediately  began  to  oppose  with 
all  his  might.  Then  the  barons  began  to  quarrel  among  them- 
selves, especially  the  proud  Earl  of  Gloucester  with  the  Earl  of 
Leicester,  who  went  abroad  in  disgust.  Then  the  people  began 
to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  barons,  because  they  did  not  do 
enough  for  them.  The  king's  chances  seemed  so  good  again, 
at  length,  that  he  took  heart  enough,  or  caught  it  from  his 
brother,  to  tell  the  Committee  of  Government  that  he  abolished 
them  ;  as  to  his  oath,  never  mind  that,  the  pope  said  ! — and  to 
seize  all  the  money  in  the  mint  and  to  shut  himself  up  in  the 
Tower  of  London.  Here  he  was  joined  by  his  eldest  son, 
Prince  Edward  ;  and  from  the  Tower  he  made  public  a  letter 
of  the  pope's  to  the  world  in  general,  informing  all  men  that  he 
had  been  an  excellent  and  just  king  for  five  and  forty  years. 

As  everybody  knew  he  had  been  nothing  of  the  sort,  nobody 
cared  much  for  this  document.  It  so  chanced  that  the  proud 
Earl  of  Gloucester  dying,  was  succeeded  by  his  son  ;  and  that 
his  son,  instead  of  being  the  enemy  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester, 
was  (for  the  time)  his  friend.  It  fell  out,  therefore,  that  these 
two  earls  joined  their  forces,  took  several  of  the  royal  castles 
in  the  country,  and  advanced  as  hard  as  they  could  on  London. 
The  London  people,  always  opposed  to  the  king,  c'eclared  for 
them  with  great  joy.  The  king  himself  remained  shut  up,  not 
at  all  gloriously,  in  the  Tower.  Prince  Edward  made  the  best 
of  his  way  to  Windsor  Castle.  His  mother  the  queen  attempted 
to  follow  him  by  water  ;  but  the  people,  seeing  her  barge  row- 
ing up  the  river,  and  hating  her  with  all  their  hearts,  ran  to 
London  Bridge,  got  together  a  quantity  of  stones  and  mud,  and 
pelted  the  barge  as  it  came  through,  crying  furiously,  "  Drown 
the  witch !  Drown  her  !  "  They  were  so  near  doing  it,  that 
the  Mayor  took  the  old  lady  under  his  protection,  and  shut  her 
up  in  St.  Paul's  until  the  danger  was  past. 

It  would  require  a  great  deal  of  writing  on  my  part,  and  a 
great  deal  of  reading  on  yours,  to  follow  the  king  through  his 
disputes  with  the  barons,  and  to  follow  the  barons  through 
their  disputes  with  one  another ;  so  I  will  make  short  work  of 
it  for  both  of  us,  and  onlj  relate  the  chief  events  which  arose 
out  of  these  quarrels.  The  good  king  of  France  was  asked  to 
decide  between  them.     He  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  king 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  THIRD. 


I'S 


must  maintain  the  Great  Charter,  and  that  the  barons  must 
give  up  the  Committee  of  Government,  and  all  the  rest  that 
had  been  done  by  the  Parliament  at  Oxford,  which  the  royal- 
ists, or  king's  party,  scornfully  called  the  Mad  Parliament. 
The  barons  declared  that  these  were  not  fair  terms,  and  they 
would  not  accept  them.  They  then  caused  the  great  bell  of 
St.  Paul's  to  be  tolled  for  the  purpose  of  rousing  up  the  Lon- 
don people,  who  armed  themselves  at  the  dismal  sound,  and 
formed  quite  an  army  in  the  streets.  I  am  sorry  to  say,  how- 
ever, that  instead  of  falling  upon  the  king's  party,  with  whom 
their  quarrel  was,  they  fell  upon  the  miserable  Jews,  and  killed 
at  least  five  hundred  of  them.  They  pretended  that  some  of 
these  Jews  were  on  the  king's  side,  and  that  they  kept  hidden 
in  their  houses,  for  the  destruction  of  the  people,  a  certain  ter 
rible  composition  called  Greek  Fire,  which  could  not  be  put 
out  with  water,  but  only  burnt  the  fiercer  for  it.  What  they 
really  did  keep  in  their  houses  was  mone)'' ;  and  this  their  cruel 
enemies  wanted ;  and  this  their  cruel  enemies  took,  like  rob- 
bers and  murderers. 

The  Earl  of  Leicester  put  himself  at  the  head  of  these  Lon- 
doners and  other  forces,  and  followed  the  king  to  Lewes  in 
Sussex,  where  he  lay  encamped  with  his  army.  Before  giving 
the  king's  forces  battle  here,  the  earl  addressed  his  soldiers, 
and  said  that  King  Henry  the  Third  had  broken  so  many  oaths 
that  he  had  become  the  enemy  of  God,  and  therefore  they 
would  wear  white  crosses  on  their  breasts,  as  if  they  were 
arrayed,  not  against  a  fellow-Christian,  but  against  a  Turk. 
White-crossed,  accordingly,  they  rushed  into  the  fight.  They 
would  have  lost  the  day, — the  king  having  on  his  side  all  the 
foreigners  in  England  ;  and  from  Scotland,  John  Comyn,  John 
Baliol,  and  Robert  Bruce,  with  all  their  men, — But  for  the  im- 
patience of  Prince  Edward,  who,  in  his  hot  desire  to  have  ven- 
geance on  the  people  of  London,  threw  the  whole  of  his  father's 
army  into  confusion.  He  was  taken  prisoner  ;  so  was  the 
king ;  so  was  the  king's  brother,  the  King  of  the  Romans  ;  and 
five  thousand  Englishmen  were  left  dead  upon  the  bloody 
grass. 

For  this  success  the  pope  excommunicated  the  Earl  of  Lei- 
cester, which  neither  the  earl  nor  the  people  cared  at  all  about. 
The  people  loved  him  and  supported  him  ;  and  he  became  the 
real  king,  having  all  the  power  of  the  government  in  his  own 
hands  though  he  was  outwardly  respectful  to  King  Henry  the 
Third,  whom  he  took  with  him  wherever  he  went,  like  a  poor 
old  limp  court-card.     He  summoned  a  parliament  (in  the  year 


Il6  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

1265),  which  was  the  first  parliament  in  England  that  the  peo 
ple  had  any  real  share  in  electing  ;  and  he  grew  more  and  more 
in  favor  with  the  people  every  day,  and  they  stood  by  him  in 
whatever  he  did. 

Many  of  the  other  barons,  and  particularly  the  Earl  of 
Gloucester,  who  had  become  by  this  time  as  proud  as  his 
father,  grew  jealous  of  this  powerful  and  popular  earl,  who  was 
proud  too,  and  began  to  conspire  against  him.  Since  the  bat- 
tle of  Lewes,  Prince  Edward  had  been  kept  as  a  hostage,  and, 
though  he  was  otherwise  treated  like  a  prince,  had  never  been 
allowed  to  go  out  without  attendants,  appointed  by  the  Earl  of 
Leicester,  who  watched  him.  The  conspiring  lords  found 
means  to  propose  to  him,  in  secret,  that  they  should  assist  him 
to  escape,  and  should  make  him  their  leader  j  to  which  he  very 
heartily  consented. 

So  on  a  day  that  was  agreed  upon,  he  said  to  his  attendants 
after  dinner  (being  then  at  Hereford),  "  I  should  like  to  ride  on 
horseback,  this  fine  afternoon,  a  little  way  into  the  country." 
As  they  too,  thought  it  would  be  very  pleasant  to  have  a  can- 
ter in  the  sunshine,  they  all  rode  out  of  the  town  together  in 
a  gay  little  troop.  When  they  came  to  a  fine  level  piece  of 
turf,  the  prince  fell  to  comparing  their  horses  one  with  another 
and  offering  bets  that  one  w^as  faster  than  another ;  and  the  at- 
tendants suspecting  no  harm,  rode  galloping  matches  until  their 
horses  were  quite  tired.  The  prince  rode  no  matches  himself, 
but  looked  on  from  his  saddle,  and  staked  his  money.  Thus 
they  passed  the  whole  merry  afternoon.  Now  the  sun  was  set- 
ting, and  they  were  all  going  slowly  up  a  hill,  the  prince's  horse 
very  fresh  and  all  the  other  horses  very  weary,  when  a  strange 
rider  mounted  on  a  gray  steed  appeared  at  the  top  of  the  hill, 
and  waved  his  hat.  "  What  does  the  fellow  mean  ?  "  said  the 
attendants,  one  to  another.  The  prince  answered  on  the  instant 
by  setting  spurs  to  his  horse,  dashing  away  at  his  utmost  speed, 
joining  the  man,  riding  into  the  midst  of  a  little  crowd  of  horse- 
men, who  were  then  seen  waiting  under  some  trees,  and  who 
closed  around  him  ;  and  so  he  departed  in  a  cloud  of  dust, 
leaving  the  road  empty  of  all  but  the  baffled  attendants,  who 
sat  looking  at  one  another,  while  their  horses  drooped  their 
ears  and  panted. 

The  prince  joined  the  Earl  of  Gloucester  at  Ludlow.  The 
Earl  of  Leicester,  with  a  part  of  the  army  and  the  stupid  old 
king  was  at  Hereford.  One  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  sons, 
Simon  de  Montford,  with  another  part  of  the  army,  was  in  Sus- 
sex.    To  prevent  these  two  parts  from  uniting  was  the  prince's 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  THIRD- 


117 


first  object.  He  attacked  Simon  de  Montfort  by  night,  de- 
feated him,  seized  his  banners  and  treasure,  and  forced  him 
into  Kenilworth  Castle  in  Warwickshire,  which  belonged  \o  his 
family. 

His  father,  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  in  the  mean  while,  not 
knowing  what  had  happened,  marched  out  of  Hereford  wdth 
his  part  of  the  army  and  the  king  to  meet  him.  He  came  on 
a  bright  morning  in  August  to  Evesham,  which  is  watered  by 
the  pleasant  river  Avon.  Looking  rather  anxiously  across  the 
prospect  towards  Kenilworth,  he  saw  his  own  banners  advan- 
cing, and  his  face  brightened  with  joy.  But  it  clouded  darkly 
when  he  presently  perceived  that  the  banners  were  captured 
and  in  the  enemy's  hands,  and  he  said,  "  It  is  over.  The 
Lord  have  mercy  on  our  souls  !  for  our  bodies  are  Prince  Ed- 
ward's." 

He  fought  like  a  true  knight  nevertheless.  When  his  horse 
was  killed  under  him,  he  fought  on  foot.  It  was  a  fierce  bat' 
tie,  and  the  dead  lay  in  heaps  everywhere.  The  old  king, 
stuck  up  in  a  suit  of  armor  on  a  big  war-horse,  which  didn't 
mind  him  at  all,  and  which  carried  him  into  all  sorts  of  places 
where  he  didn't  want  to  go,  got  into  everybody's  way,  and  very 
nearly  got  knocked  on  the  head  by  one  of  his  son's  men.  But 
he  managed  to  pipe  out,  "  I  am  Harry  of  Winchester  !  "  and 
the  prince,  who  heard  him,  seized  his  bridle,  and  took  him  out 
of  peril.  The  Earl  of  Leicester  still  fought  bravely,  until  his 
best  son,  Henry,  was  killed,  and  the  bodies  of  his  best  friends 
choked  his  path  ;  and  then  he  fell,  still  fighting,  sword  in  hand. 
They  mangled  his  body,  and  sent  it  as  a  present  to  a  noble 
lady, — but  a  very  unpleasant  lady,  I  should  think, — who  was 
the  wife  of  his  worst  enemy.  They  could  not  mangle  his  mem- 
ory in  the  minds  of  the  faithful  people,  though.  Many  years 
afterwards  they  loved  him  more  than  ever,  and  regarded  him 
as  a  saint,  and  always  spoke  of  him  as  "  Sir  Simon  the  Right- 
eous." 

And  even  though  he  was  dead,  the  cause  for  which  he  had 
fought  still  lived,  and  was  strong,  and  forced  itself  upon  the 
king  in  the  very  hour  of  victory.  Henry  found  himself  obliged 
to  respect  the  Great  Charter,  however  much  he  hated  it,  and  to 
make  laws  similar  to  the  laws  of  the  great  Earl  of  Leicester, 
and  to  be  moderate  and  forgiving  towards  the  people  at  last, — 
even  towards  the  people  of  London,  who  had  so  long  opposed 
him.  There  were  more  rising  before  all  this  was  done  ;  but 
they  were  set  at  rest  by  these  means,  and  Prince  Edward  did 
bis  best  in  all  things  to  restore  peace.      One  Sir  Adam  de 


1 18  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Gordon  was  the  last  dissatisfied  knight  in  arms  ;  but  the  prince 
vanquished  him  in  single  combat,  in  a  wood,  and  nobly  gave 
him  his  life  and  became  his  friend,  instead  of  slaying  him.  Sir 
Adam  was  not  ungrateful.  He  ever  afterwards  remained 
devoted  to  his  generous  conqueror. 

When  the  troubles  of  the  kingdom  were  thus  calmed,  Prince 
Edward  and  his  cousin  Henry  took  the  cross,  and  went  away 
to  the  Holy  Land,  with  many  English  lords  and  knights.  Four 
years  afterwards  the  King  of  tlie  Romans  died  ;  and  next  year 
(1272),  his  brother,  the  weak  King  of  England,  died.  He  was 
sixty-eight  years  old  then,  and  had  reigned  fifty-six  years.  He 
was  as  much  of  a  king  in  death  as  he  had  ever  been  in  life. 
He  was  the  mere  pale  shadow  of  a  king  at  all  times. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST,  CALLED  LONGSHANKS. 

It  was  now^  the  year  of  our  Lord  1272  ,  and  Prince  Edward, 
the  heir  to  the  throne,  being  away  in  the  Holy  Land,  knew  noth- 
ing of  his  father's  death.  The  barons,  however,  proclaimed 
him  king,  immediately  after  the  royal  funeral ;  and  the  people 
very  willingly  consented,  since  most  men  knew  too  well  by  this 
time  what  the  horrors  of  a  contest  for  the  crown  were.  So 
King  Edward  the  First,  called,  in  a  not  very  complimentary 
manner,  Longshanks,  because  of  the  slenderness  of  his  legs, 
was  peacefully  accepted  by  the  English  nation. 

His  legs  had  need  to  be  strong,  however  long  and  thin  they 
were ;  for  they  had  to  support  him  through  many  difficulties  on 
the  fiery  sands  of  Asia,  where  his  small  force  of  soldiers  fainted, 
died,  deserted,  and  seemed  to  melt  away.  But  his  prowess 
made  light  of  it ;  and  he  said,  ''  I  will  go  on,  if  I  go  on  with  no 
other  follower  than  my  groom  !  " 

A  prince  of  this  spirit  gave  the  Turks  a  deal  of  trouble. 
He  stormed  Nazareth,  at  which  place,  of  all  places  on  earth,  I 
am  sorry  to  relate,  he  made  a  frightful  slaughter  of  innocent 
people  ;  and  then  he  went  to  Acre,  where  he  got  a  truce  of  ten 
years  from  the  Sultan.  He  had  very  nearly  lost  his  life  in 
Acre,  through  the  treachery  of  a  Saracen  noble,  called  the  Emir 
of  Jaffa,  who,  making  the  pretence  that  he  had  some  idea  of 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST. 


119 


turning  Christian,  and  wanted  to  know  all  about  that  religion, 
sent  a  trusty  messenger  to  Edward,  very  often, — with  a  dagger 
in  his  sleeve.  At  last,  one  Friday,  in  Whitsun-week,  when  it 
was  very  hot,  and  all  the  sandy  prospect  lay  beneath  the  blazing 
sun,  burnt  up  like  a  great  overdone  biscuit,  and  Edward  was 
lying  on  a  couch,  dressed  for  coolness  in  only  a  loose  robe,  the 
messenger,  with  his  chocolate-colored  face  and  his  bright  dark 
eyes  and  white  teeth,  came  creeping  in  with  a  letter,  and  kneeled 
down  like  a  tame  tiger.  But  the  moment  Edward  stretched  out 
his  hand  to  take  the  letter,  the  tiger  make  a  spring  at  his  heart. 
He  was  quick,  but  Edward  was  quick  too.  He  seized  the  trai- 
tor by  his  chocolate  throat,  threw  him  to  the  ground,  and  slew 
him  with  the  very  dagger  he  had  drawn.  The  weapon  had  struck 
Edward  in  the  arm,  and,  although  the  wound  itself  was  slight, 
it  threatened  to  be  mortal,  for  the  blade  of  the  dagger  had  been 
smeared  with  poison.  Thanks,  however,  to  a  better  surgeon 
than  was  often  to  be  found  in  those  times,  and  to  some  whole- 
some herbs,  and  above  all,  to  his  faithful  wife,  Eleanor,  who 
devotedly  nursed  him,  and  is  said  by  some  to  have  sucked  the 
poison  from  the  wound  with  her  own  red  lips  (which  I  am  very 
willing  to  believe),  Edward  soon  recovered  and  was  sound 
again. 

As  the  kingjhis  father, had  sent  entreaties  to  him  to  return 
home,  he  now  began  the  journey.  He  had  got  as  far  as  Italy, 
when  he  met  messengers  who  brought  him  intelligence  of  the 
king's  death.  Hearing  that  all  was  quiet  at  home,  he  made  no 
haste  to  return  to  his  own  dominions,  but  paid  a  visit  to  the 
pope,  and  went  in  state  through  various  Italian  towns,  where 
he  was  welcomed  with  acclamations  as  a  mighty  champion  of 
the  cross  from  the  Holy  Land,  and  where  he  received  presents 
of  purple  mantles  and  prancing  horses,  and  went  along  in  great 
triumph.  The  shouting  people  little  knew  that  he  was  the  last 
English  monarch  who  would  ever  embark  in  a  crusade,  or  that 
within  twenty  years  every  conquest  which  the  Christians  had 
made  in  the  Holy  Land,  at  the  cost  of  so  much  blood,  would 
be  won  back  by  the  Turks.     But  all  this  came  to  pass. 

There  was,  and  there  is,  an  old  towm  standing  in  a  plain  in 
France,  called  Chalons.  When  the  king  was  coming  towards 
the  place  on  his  way  to  England,  a  wily  French  lord  called  the 
Count  of  Chalons,  sent  him  a  polite  challenge  to  come  with  his 
knights  and  hold  a  fair  tournament  with  the  count  and  his 
knights,  and  make  a  day  of  it  with  sword  and  lance.  It  was 
represented  to  the  king  that  the  Count  of  Chtdons  was  not  to 
be  trusted,  and  that,  instead  of  a  holiday-fight  for  mere  show 


I20  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 

and  in  good  humor,  he  secretly  meant  a  real  battle,  in  which 
the  English  should  be  defeated  by  superior  force. 

The  king,  however,  nothing  afraid,  went  to  the  appointed 
place  on  the  appointed  day  with  a  thousand  followers.  When 
the  count  came  with  two  thousand,  and  attacked  the  English 
in  earnest,  the  English  rushed  at  them  with  such  valor,  that 
the  count's  men  and  the  count's  horses  soon  began  to  be 
tumbled  down  all  over  the  field.  The  count  himself  seized 
the  king  round  the  neck  ;  but  the  king  tumbled  him  out  of  his 
saddle  in  return  for  the  compliment,  and,  jumping  from  his 
own  horse  and  standing  over  him,  beat  away  at  his  iron  armor 
like  a  blacksmith  hammering  on  his  anvil.  Even  when  the 
count  owned  himself  defeated,  and  offered  his  sword,  the  king 
would  not  do  him  the  honor  to  take  it,  but  made  him  yield  it  up 
to  a  common  soldier.  There  had  been  such  fury  shown  in  this 
nght,  that  it  was  afterwards  called  the  little  battle  of  Chalons. 

The  English  were  very  well  disposed  to  be  proud  of  their 
king  after  these  adventures ;  so,  when  he  landed  at  Dover  in 
the  year  1274  (being  then  thirty-six  years  old),  and  went  on  to 
Westminster  where  he  and  his  good  queen  were  crowned  with 
great  magnificence,  splendid  rejoicings  took  place.  For  the 
coronation  feast  there  were  provided,  among  other  eatables, 
four  hundred  oxen,  four  hundred  sheep,  four  hundred  and  fifty 
pigs,  eighteen  wild  boars,  three  hundred  flitches  of  bacon,  and 
twenty  thousand  fowls.  The  fountains  and  conduits  in  the 
streets  flowed  with  red  and  white  wine  instead  of  water ;  the 
rich  citizens  hung  silks  and  cloths  of  the  brightest  colors  out  of 
their  windows  to  increase  the  beauty  of  the  snow,  and  threw 
out  gold  and  silver  by  whole  handful  to  make  scrambles  for  the 
crowd.  In  short,  there  was  such  eating  and  drinking,  such 
music  and  capering,  such  a  ringing  of  bells  and  tossing  of  caps, 
such  a  shouting  and  singing  and  revelling,  as  the  narrow  over- 
hanging streets  of  old  London  City  had  not  witnessed  for  many 
a  long  day.  All  the  people  were  merry, — except  the  poor 
Jews,  who,  trembling  within  their  houses,  and  scarcely  daring  to 
peep  out,  began  to  foresee  that  they  would  have  to  find  the 
money  for  this  joviality  sooner  or  later. 

To  dismiss  this  sad  subject  of  the  Jews  for  the  present,  I 
am  sorry  to  add  that  in  this  reign  they  were  most  unmercifully 
pillaged.  They  were  hanged  in  great  numbers,  on  accusations 
of  having  clipped  the  king's  coin. — which  all  kinds  of  people 
had  done.  They  were  heavily  taxed  ;  they  were  disgracefully 
badged ;  they  were,  on  one  day,  thirteen  years  after  the  coro- 
nation, taken  up  with  their  wives  and  children,  and  thrown  into 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST.  j^j 

beastly  prisons,  until  they  purchased  their  release  by  paying  to 
the  king  twelve  thousand  pounds.  Finally,  every  kind  of  prop- 
erty belonging  to  them  was  seized  by  the  king,  except  so  little 
as  would  defray  the  charge  of  their  taking  themselves  away  into 
foreign  countries.  Many  years  elapsed  before  the  hope  of  gain 
induced  any  of  their  race  to  return  to  England,  where  they  had 
been  treated  so  heartlessly  and  had  suffered  so  much. 

If  King  Edward  the  First  had  been  as  bad  a  king  to  Chris- 
tians as  he  was  to  Jews,  he  would  have  been  bad  indeed.  But 
he  was,  in  general,  a  wise  and  great  monarch,  under  whom  the 
country  much  improved.  He  had  no  love  for  the  Great  Charter, 
— few  kings  had,  through  many,  many  years, — but  he  had  high 
qualities.  The  first  bold  object  which  he  conceived  when  he 
came  home  was  to  unite  under  one  sovereign  England,  Scot- 
land, and  Wales  ;  the  two  last  of  which  countries  had  each  a 
little  king  of  its  own,  about  whom  the  people  were  always  quar^ 
relling  and  fighting,  and  making  a  prodigious  disturbance, — a 
great  deal  more  than  he  was  worth.  In  the  course  of  King 
Edward's  reign,  he  was  engaged  besides  in  a  war  with  France, 
To  make  these  quarrels  clearer,  we  will  separate  their  histories 
and  take  them  thus :  Wales,  first ;  France,  second  ;  Scotland, 
third. 

Llewellyn  was  the  Prince  of  Wales.  He  had  been  on  the 
side  of  the  barons  in  the  reign  of  the  stupid  old  king,  but  had 
afterwards  sworn  allegiance  to  him.  When  King  Edward  came 
to  the  throne,  Llewellyn  was  required  to  swear  allegiance  to 
him  also,  which  he  refused  to  do.  The  king  being  crowned 
and  in  his  own  dominions,  three  times  more  required  Llewellyn 
to  come  and  do  homage  ;  and  three  times  more  Llewellyn  said 
he  would  rather  not.  He  was  going  to  be  married  to  Eleanor 
de  Montfort,  a  young  lady  of  the  family  mentioned  in  the  last 
reign  ;  and  it  chanced  that  this  young  lady,  coming  from  France 
with  her  youngest  brother,  Emeric,  was  taken  by  an  English 
ship,  and  was  ordered  by  the  English  king  to  be  detained. 
Upon  this  the  quarrel  came  to  a  head.  The  king  went  with 
his  fleet  to  the  coast  of  Wales,  where  so  encompassing  Lle- 
wellyn that  he  could  only  take  refuge  in  the  bleak  mountain 
region  of  Snowdon,  in  which  no  provisions  could  reach  him, 
he  was  soon  starved  into  an  apology,  and  into  a  treaty  of  peace, 
and  into  paying  the  expenses  of  the  war.  The  king,  how- 
ever, forgave  him  some  of  the  hardest  conditions  of  the  treaty, 
and  consented  to  his  marriage.  And  he  now  thought  he  had 
reduced  Wales  to  obedience. 

But  the  Welsh,  although  they  were  naturally  a  gentle,  quiet, 


122  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

pleasant  people,  who  liked  to  receive  strangers  in  their  cottages 
among  the  mountains,  and  to  set  before  them  with  free  hospi 
tality  whatever  they  had  to  eat  and  drink,  and  to  play  to  them 
on  their  harps,  and  sing  their  native  ballads  to  them,  were  a 
people  of  great  spirit  when  their  blood  was  up.  Englishmen, 
after  this  affair,  began  to  be  insolent  in  Wales,  and  to  assume 
the  air  of  masters  ;  and  the  Welsh  pride  could  not  bear  it. 
Moreover,  they  believed  in  that  unlucky  old  Merlin,  some  of 
whose  unlucky  old  prophecies  somebody  always  seemed  doomed 
to  remember  when  there  was  a  chance  of  its  doing  harm  ;  and 
just  at  this  time  some  blind  old  gentleman,  with  a  harp  and  a 
long  white  beard,  who  was  an  excellent  person,  but  had  become 
of  an  unknown  age  and  tedious,  burst  out  with  a  declaration, 
that  Merlin  had  predicted  that  when  English  money  had  be- 
come round,  a  prince  of  Wales  would  be  crowned  in  London. 
Now  King  Edward  had  recently  forbid  the  English  penny  to  be 
cut  into  halves  and  quarters  for  half  pence  and  farthings,  and 
had  actually  introduced  a  round  coin  ;  therefore  the  Welsh 
■jeople  said  this  was  the  time  Merlin  meant,  and  rose  accord- 
ingly. 

King  Edward  had  bought  over  Prince  David,  Llewellyr  j> 
brother,  by  heaping  favors  upon  him,  but  he  was  the  firp.  to 
revolt,  being  perhaps  troubled  in  his  conscience.  One  stormy 
night,  he  surprised  the  Castle  of  Hawarden,  in  possession  of 
which  an  English  nobleman  had  been  left,  killed  the  wh-^le 
garrison,  and  carried  off  the  nobleman  a  prisoner  to  Siio\>'  .on. 
Upon  this,  the  Welsh  people  rose  like  one  man.  King  Ed  vrrd, 
with  his  army,  marching  from  Worcester  to  the  Menai  Strait, 
crossed  it — near  to  where  the  wonderful  tubular  iron  bridge 
now,  in  days  so  different,  makes  a  passage  for  railway  trains — 
by  a  bridge  of  boats  that  enabled  forty  men  to  march  abreast. 
He  subdued  the  Island  of  Anglesea,  and  sent  his  men  forward 
to  observe  the  enemy.  The  sudden  appearance  of  the  Welsh 
created  a  panic  among  them,  and  they  fell  back  to  the  bridge. 
The  tide  had  in  the  mean  time  risen,  and  separated  the  boats  ; 
:he  Welsh  pursuing  them,  they  were  driven  into  the  sea,  and 
there  they  sunk,  in  their  heavy  iron  armor,  by  thousands.  After 
this  victory,  Llewellyn,  helped  by  the  severe  winter-weather  of 
tVales,  gained  another  battle  ;  but  the  king  ordering  a  portion 
of  his  English  army  to  advance  through  South  Wales,  and 
catch  him  between  two  foes,  and  Llewellyn  bravely  turning  to 
meet  this  new  enemy,  he  was  surprised  and  killed, — very  meanly, 
for  he  was  unarmed  and  defenceless.  His  head  was  struck  off, 
and  sent  to  London,  where  it  was  fixed  upon  the  Tower,  en  J  •■- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST. 


123 


cled  with  a  wreath,  some  say  of  ivy,  some  say  of  willow,  some 
say  of  silver,  to  make  it  look  like  a  ghastly  coin  in  ridicuio  of 
the  prediction. 

David,  however,  still  held  out  for  six  months,  though  eagerly 
sought  after  by  the  king,  and  hunted  by  his  own  countrymen. 
One  of  them  finally  betrayed  him,  with  his  wife  and  children. 
He  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  ;  arid 
from  that  time  this  became  the  established  punishment  of  traitors 
in  England, — a  punishment  wholly  without  excuse,  as  being  re- 
volting, vile,  and  cruel,  after  its  object  is  dead ;  and  which  has 
no  sense  in  it,  as  its  only  real  degradation  (and  that  nothing 
can  biot  out)  is  to  the  country  that  permits  on  any  considera- 
tion such  abominable  barbarity. 

Wales  was  now  subdued.  The  queen  giving  birth  to  a 
young  prince  in  the  Castle  of  Carnarvon,  the  king  showed  him 
iO  Welsh  people  as  their  countryman,  and  called  him  Prince 
of  Wales, — a  title  that  has  ever  since  been  borne  by  the  heir- 
apparent  to  the  English  throne,  which  that  little  prince  soon 
became  by  the  death  of  his  elder  brother.  The  king  did  better 
things  for  the  Welsh  than  that  by  improving  their  laws  and  en- 
rouraging  their  trade,  Disturbances  still  took  place,  chiefly 
occasioned  by  the  avarice  and  pride  of  the  English  lords,  or. 
v'hom  Welsh  lands  and  castles  had  been  bestowed ;  but  they 
jvere  subdued,  and  the  country  never  rose  again.  There  is  a 
legend,  that,  to  prevent  the  people  from  being  incited  to  rebel- 
ion  by  the  songs  of  their  bards  and  harpers,  Edw^ard  had  them 
all  put  to  death.  Some  of  them  may  have  fallen  among  other 
men  who  held  out  against  the  king  ;  but  this  general  slaughter 
is,  I  think,  a  fancy  of  the  harpers  themselves,  who,  I  dare  say, 
made  a  song  about  it  many  years  afterwards,  and  sang  it  by 
the  Welsh  firesides  until  it  came  to  be  believed. 

The  foreign  war  of  the  reign  of  Edward  the  First  arose  in 
this  way.  The  crews  of  two  vessels,  one  a  Norman  ship  and 
the  other  an  English  ship,  happened  to  go  to  the  same  place  in 
their  boats  to  fill  their  casks  with  fresh  water.  Being  rougli, 
angry  fellows,  they  began  to  quarrel,  and  then  to  fight, — the 
E73glish  with  their  fists,  the  Normans  with  their  knives, — and 
'xi  the  fight  a  Norman  was  killed.  The  Norman  crew,  instead 
of  revenging  themselves  upon  those  English  sailors  with  w.  10m 
they  had  quarrelled  (who  were  too  strong  for  them,  I  susp<ict), 
:00k  to  their  ship  again  in  a  great  rage,  attacked  the  firet  En- 
glish ship  they  met,  laid  hold  of  an  unoffending  merchant  who 
happened  to  be  on  board,  and  brutally  hanged  him  in  the 
rigging  of  their  own  vessel  with  a  dog  at  his  feet.     This  so 


124  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

enraged  the  English  sailors  that  there  was  no  restraining  them; 
and  whenever  and  wherever  English  sailors  met  Norman  sailors 
they  fell  upon  each  other  tooth  and  nail.  The  Irish  and  Dutch 
sailors  took  part  with  the  English;  the  French  and  Genoese 
sailors  helped  the  Normans;  and  thus  the  greater  part  of  the 
mariners  sailing  over  the  sea  became,  in  their  way,  as  violent 
and  raging  as  the  sea  itself  when  it  is  disturbed. 

King  Edward's  fame  had  been  so  high  abroad,  that  he  had 
been  chosen  to  decide  a  difference  between  France  and  another 
foreign  power,  and  had  lived  upon  the  Continent  three  years. 
At  first  neither  he  nor  the  French  king  Philip  (the  good  Louis 
had  been  dead  some  time)  interf erred  in  these  quarrels ;  but  when 
a  fleet  of  eighty  English  ships  engaged  and  utterly  defeated  a 
Norman  fleet  of  two  hundred  in  a  pitched  battle  fought  round 
a  ship  at  anchor,  in  which  no  quarter  was  given,  the  matter 
became  to  serious  to  be  passed  over.  King  Edward,  as  Duke 
of  Guienne,  was  summoned  to  present  himself  before  the  King 
of  France  at  Paris,  and  answer  for  the  damage  done  by  his 
sailor  subjects.  At  first  he  sent  the  Bishop  of  London  as  his 
representative,  and  then  his  brother  Edmund,  who  was  married 
to  the  French  queen's  mother.  I  am  afraid  Edmund  was  an 
easy  man,  and  allowed  himself  to  be  talked  over  by  his  charm- 
ing relations,  the  French  court  ladies;  at  all  events,  he  was 
induced  to  give  up  his  brother's  dukedom  forty  days, — as  a 
mere  form,  the  French  king  said,  to  satisfy  his  honor, — and  he 
was  so  very  much  astonished  when  the  time  was  out,  to  find 
that  the  French  king  had  no  idea  of  giving  it  up  again,  that  I 
should  not  wonder  if  it  hastened  his  death,  which  soon  took 
place. 

King  Edward  was  a  king  to  win  his  foreign  dukedom  back 
again,  if  it  could  be  won  by  energy  and  valor.  He  raised  a 
large  army,  renounced  his  allegiance  as  Duke  of  Guienne,  and 
crossed  the  sea  to  carry  war  into  France.  Before  any  impor- 
tant battle  was  fought,  however,  a  truce  was  agreed  upon  for  two 
years,  and  in  the  course  of  that  time  the  pope  effected  a  recon- 
ciliation. King  Edward,  who  was  now  a  widower,  having  lost 
his  affectionate  and  good  wife,  Eleanor,  married  the  French 
king's  sister,  Margaret ;  and  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  contracted 
to  the  French  king's  daughter,  Isabella. 

Out  of  bad  things,  good  things  sometimes  arise.  Out  of 
this  hanging  of  the  innocent  merchant,  and  the  bloodshed  and 
strife  it  caused,  there  came  to  be  established  one  of  the  greatest 
powers  that  the  English  people  now  possess.  The  preparations 
for  the  war  being  very  expensive,  and  King  Edward  greatly 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST. 


125 


wanting  money,  and  being  very  arbitrary'  ia  his  ways  of  raising 
it,  some  A  the  barons  began  firmly  to  oppose  him.  Two  of 
them  in  particular,  Humphrey  Bohun,  Earl  of  Hereford,  and 
Roger  Bigot,  E  1  of  Norfolk,  were  so  stout  against  him  that 
they  maintained  he  had  no  right  to  command  them  to  head  his 
forces  in  Guienne,  and  flatly  refused  to  go  there.  "  By  Heaven, 
Sir  Earl,"  said  the  king  to  the  Earl  of  Hereford,  in  a  great  pas- 
sion, "you  shall  either  g  or  be  hanged!"  "  By  Heaven,  Sir 
Ring,"  replied  the  earl,  "  I  will  neither  go  nor  yet  will  I  be 
hanged  ;"  and  both  he  and  the  other  earl  sturdily  left  the  cour*:, 
attended  by  many  lords.  The  king  tried  every  means  of  raising 
money.  He  taxed  the  clergy,  in  spite  of  all  the  pope  said  to  the 
contrary ;  and  when  they  refused  to  pay  reduced  them  to  sub- 
mission by  saying,  Very  well,  then  they  had  no  claim  upon  the 
government  for  protection,  and  any  man  might  plunder  them 
who  would, — which  a  good  many  men  were  very  ready  to  do, 
and  very  readily  did,  and  which  the  clergy  found  too  losing  a 
game  to  be  played  at  long.  He  seized  all  the  wool  and  leather 
in  the  hands  of  the  merchants,  promising  to  pay  for  it  some  fine 
day ;  and  he  set  a  tax  upon  the  exportation  of  wool,  which  was 
so  unpopular  among  the  traders  that  it  was  called  "  The  evil 
toll."  But  all  would  not  do.  The  barons  led  by  those  two 
great  earls,  declared  any  taxes  imposed  without  the  consent  of 
Parliament  unlawful ;  and  the  Parliament  refused  to  impose  taxes 
until  the  king  should  confirm  afresh  the  two  Great  Charters, 
and  should  solemnly  declare  in  writing  that  there  was  no  power 
in  the  country  to  raise  money  from  the  people  evermore  but 
the  power  of  Parliament  representing  all  ranks  of  the  people. 
The  king  was  very  unwilling  to  diminish  his  own  power  by 
allowing  this  great  privilege  in  the  Parliament ;  but  there  was 
no  help  for  it,  and  he  at  last  complied.  We  shall  come  to  an- 
other king,  by  and  by,  who  might  have  saved  his  head  from 
rolling  off,  if  he  had  profited  by  this  example. 

The  people  gained  other  benefits  in  Parliament  from  the 
good  sense  and  wisdom  of  this  king.  Many  of  the  laws  were 
much  improved  ;  provision  was  made  for  the  gi eater  safety  of 
travellers,  and  the  apprehension  of  thieves  and  murderers  ;  the 
priests  were  prevented  from  holding  too  much  land,  and  so  be- 
coming too  powerful ;  and  justices  of  the  peace  were  first  ap- 
pointed (though  not  at  first  under  that  name)  in  various  parts 
of  the  country. 

And  now  we  come  to  Scotland,  which  was  tne  great  and 
lasting  trouble  of  the  reign  of  King  Edward  the  First. 


126  ^  CITIL  D'S  II/S  TOR  Y  OF  ENGLA  A'D. 

About  thirteen  years  after  King  Edward's  coronation,  Alex- 
ander the  Third,  the  King  of  Scotland,  died  of  a  fall  from  his 
horse.  He  had  been  married  to  ?vlargaret.  King  Edward's 
sister.  All  their  children  being  dead,  the  Scottish  crown  be- 
came the  right  of  a  young  princess  only  eight  years  old,  the 
daughter  of  Eric,  King  of  Norway,  wiio  had  married  a  daughter 
of  the  deceased  sovereign.  King  Edward  proposed  that  the 
Maiden  of  Norway,  as  this  princess  was  called,  should  be 
engaged  to  be  married  to  his  eldest  son  ;  but  unfortunately,  as 
she  was  coming  over  to  England,  she  fell  sick,  and,  landing  on 
one  of  the  Orkney  Islands,  died  there.  A  great  commotion 
immediately  began  in  Scotland,  where  as  many  as  thirteen  noisy 
claimants  to  the  vacant  throne  started  up,  and  made  a  general 
confusion. 

King  Edward  being  much  renowned  for  his  sagacity  and 
justice,  it  seems  to  have  been  agreed  to  refer  the  dispute  to  him. 
He  accepted  the  trust,  and  went  with  an  army  to  the  Border- 
land where  England  and  Scotland  joined.  There,  he  called 
upon  the  Scottish  gentlemen  to  meet  him  at  the  Castle  of  Norham 
on  the  English  side  of  the  River  Tweed  ;  and  to  that  castle  they 
came.  But,  before  he  would  take  any  step  in  the  business,  he 
required  those  Scottish  gentlemen,  one  and  all,  to  do  homage  to 
him  as  their  superior  lord  ;  and  when  they  hesitated,  he  said, 
"  By  holy  Edward,  whose  crown  I  wear,  I  will  have  my  rights, 
or  I  will  die  in  maintaining  them  !  "  The  Scottish  gentlemen, 
who  had  not  expected  this,  were  disconcerted,  and  asked  for 
three  weeks  to  think  about  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  three  weeks,  another  meeting  took  place, 
on  a  green  plain  on  the  Scottish  side  of  th^river.  Of  all  the 
competitors  for  the  Scottish  throne,  there  were  only  two  who 
had  any  real  claim,  in  right  of  their  near  kindred  to  the  royal 
family.'  There  were  John  Baliol  and  Robert  Bruce  ;  and  the 
right  was,  I  have  no  doubt,  on  the  side  of  John  Baliol.  At  this 
particular  meeting  John  Baliol  was  not  present,  but  Robert 
Bruce  was  ;  and  on  Robert  Bruce  being  formally  asked  whether 
he  acknowledged  the  King  of  England  for  his  superior  lord,  he 
answered  plainly  and  distinctly,  Yes,  he  did.  Next  day  John 
Baliol  appeared,  and  said  the  same.  This  point  settled,  some 
arrangements  were  made  for  inquiring  into  their  titles. 

The  inquiry  occupied  a  pretty  long  time, — more  than  a 
year.  While  it  was  going  on.  King  Edward  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  making  a  journey  through  Scotland,  and  calling 
upon  the  Scottish  people  of  all  degrees  to  acknowledge  them- 
selves his  vassals,  or  be  imprisoned  until  they  did.     In   the 


ENGLAND  UNDE  THE  FIRST.  127 

meanwhile,  commissioners  were  appointed  to  conduct  the  in- 
quiry, a  parliament  was  held  at  Berwick  about  it,  the  two 
claimants"  were  heard  at  full  length,  and  there  was  a  vast 
amount  of  talking.  At  last,  in  the  great  hall  of  the  Castle  of 
Berwick,  the  king  gave  judgment  in  favor  of  John  Baliol ;  who, 
consenting  to  receive  his  crown  by  the  King  of  England's  favor 
and  permission,  was  crowned  at  Scone,  in  an  old  stone  chair 
which  had  been  used  for  ages  in  the  abbey  there,  at  the  cor- 
onation of  the  Scottish  kings.  Then  King  Edward  caused  tb.e 
great  seal  of  Scotland,  used  since  the  late  king's  death,  to  bd 
broken  in  four  pieces,  and  placed  in  the  English  treasury  ;  and 
considered  that  he  now  had  Scotland  (according  to  the  commok 
saying)  under  his  thumb. 

Scotland  had  a  strong  will  of  its  own  yet,  however.  King 
Edward  determined  that  the  Scottish  king  should  not  forget  he 
was  his  vassal,  summoned  him  repeatedly  to  come  and  defend 
himself  and  his  judges  before  the  English  Parliament  when  ap- 
peals from  the  decisions  of  Scottish  courts  of  justice  were 
being  heard.  At  length  John  Baliol,  who  had  no  great  heart 
of  his  own,  had  so  much  heart  put  into  him  by  the  brave  spirit 
of  the  Scottish  people,  who  took  this  as  a  national  insult,  that 
he  refused  to  come  any  more.  Thereupon,  the  king  further  re- 
quired him  to  help  him  in  his  war  abroad  (which  was  then  in 
progress),  and  to  give  up,  as  security  for  his  good  behavior  in 
future,  the  three  strong  Scottish  castles  of  Jedburgh,  Roxburgh, 
and  Berwick.  Nothing  of  this  being  done, — on  the  contrary, 
the  Scottish  people  concealing  their  king  among  their  mountains 
in  the  Highlands,  and  showing  a  determination  to  resist, — 
Edward  marched  to  Berwick  with  an  army  of  thirty  thousand 
foot,  and  four  thousand  horse,  took  the  castle,  and  slew  its 
whole  garrison,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  as  well, — men, 
women  and  children.  Lord  Warrenne,  Earl  of  Surrey,  then 
went  on  to  the  Castle  of  Dunbar,  before  which  a  battle  was 
fought,  and  the  whole  Scottish  army  defeated  with  great  slaugh- 
ter. The  victory  being  complete,  the  Earl  of  Surrey  was  left 
as  guardian  of  Scotland ;  the  principal  offices  in  that  kingdom 
were  given  to  Englishmen  ;  the  more  powerful  Scottish  nobles 
were  obliged  to  come  and  live  in  England  ;  the  Scottish  crown 
and  sceptre  were  brought  away  ;  and  even  the  old  stone  chair 
was  carried  off,  and  placed  in  Westminster  Abbey,  where  you 
may  see  it  now.  Baliol  had  the  Tower  of  London  lent  him  for 
a  residence,  with  permission  to  range  about  within  a  circle  of 
twenty  miles.  Three  years  afterwards  he  was  allowed  to  go 
to  Normandy,  where  he  had  estates,  and  where  he  passed  the 


128  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

remaining  six  years  of  his  life  ;  far  more  happily,  I  daresay, 
than  he  had  lived  for  a  long  while  in  angry  Scotland. 

Now  there  was,  in  the  west  of  Scotland,  a  gentleman  of 
small  fortune,  named  William  Wallace,  the  second  son  of  a 
Scottish  knight.  He  was  a  man  of  great  size  and  great  strength ; 
he  was  very  brave  and  daring  ;  when  he  spoke  to  a  body  of  his 
countrymen,  he  could  rouse  them  in  a  wonderful  manner  by 
the  power  of  his  burning  words ;  he  loved  Scotland  dearly,  and 
he  hated  England  with  his  utmost  might.  The  domineering 
conduct  of  the  English,  who  now  held  the  places  of  trust  in 
Scotland,  made  them  as  intolerable  to  the  proud  Scottish  peo- 
ple as  they  had  been  under  similar  circumstances  to  the  Welsh  ; 
and  no  man  in  all  Scotland  regarded  them  with  so  much  smoth- 
ered rage  as  William  Wallace.  One  day  an  Englishman  in 
office,  little  knowing  what  he  was,  affronted  him.  Wallace  in- 
stantly struck  him  dead  ;  and  taking  refuge  among  the  rocks 
and  hills,  and  there  joining  with  his  countryman.  Sir  William 
Douglas,  who  was  also  in  arms  against  King  Edward,  became 
the  most  resolute  and  undaunted  champion  of  a  people  strug- 
gling for  their  independence  that  ever  lived  upon  the  earth. 

The  English  guardian  of  the  kingdom  fled  before  him  ;  and 
thus  encouraged,  the  Scottish  people  revolted  everywhere,  and 
fell  upon  the  English  without  mercy.  The  Earl  of  Surrey,  by 
the  king's  commands,  raised  all  the  power  of  the  border  coun- 
ties, and  two  English  armies  poured  into  Scotland.  Only  one 
chief,  in  the  face  of  those  armies,  stood  by  Wallace,  who,  with 
a  force  of  forty  thousand  men,  awaited  the  invaders  at  a  place 
on  the  River  Forth,  within  two  miles  of  Stirling.  Across  the 
river  there  was  only  one  poor  wooden  bridge,  called  the  Bridge 
of  Kildean, — so  narrow  that  but  two  men  could  cross  it  abreast. 
With  his  eyes  upon  this  bridge,  Wallace  posted  the  greatei  oart 
of  his  men  among  some  rising  grounds,  and  waited  caimly. 
When  the  English  army  came  up  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the 
river,  messengers  were  sent  forward  to  offer  terms.  Wallace 
sent  them  back  with  a  defiance,  in  the  name  of  the  freedom  of 
Scotland.  Some  of  the  officers  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  ni  com- 
mand of  the  English,  with  their  eyes  also  on  the  bridge, 
advised  him  to  be  discreet  and  not  hasty.  He,  however  urged 
to  immediate  battle  by  some  other  officers,  and  particularly  by 
Cressinghani,  King  Edward's  treasurer,  and  a  rash  man,  gave 
the  word  of  command  to  advance.  One  thousand  English 
crossed  the  bridge,  two  abreast ;  the  Scottish  troops  were  as 
motionless  as  stone  images.  Two  thousand  English  crossed ; 
three  thousand,  four  thousand,  five.     Not  a  fea,ther,  all  this 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST.  125 

time,  had  been  seen  to  stir  among  the  Scottish  bonnets.  Now 
ihey  all  fluttered.  "  Forward,  one  party,  to  the  foot  of  the 
bridge  !  "  cried  Wallace,  "  and  let  no  more  English  cross  !  The 
rest,  down  with  me  on  the  five  thousand  who  have  come  over, 
and  cut  them  all  to  pieces  !  "  It  was  done,  in  the  sight  of  the 
whole  remainder  of  the  English  army,  who  could  give  no  help. 
Cressingham  himself  was  killed,  and  the  Scotch  made  whips 
for  their  horses  of  his  skin. 

King  Edward  was  abroad  at  this  time,  and  during  the  suc- 
cesses on  the  Scottish  side  which  followed,  and  which  enabled 
bold  Wallace  to  win  the  whole  country  back  again,  and  even  to 
ravage  the  English  borders.  But,  after  a  few  winter  months, 
the  king  returned  and  took  the  field  with  more  than  his  usual 
energy.  One  night,  when  a  kick  from  his  horse,  as  they  both 
lay  on  the  ground  together,  broke  two  of  his  ribs,  and  a  cry 
arose  that  he  was  killed,  he  leaped  into  his  saddle,  regardless 
of  the  pain  he  suffered,  and  rode  through  the  camp.  Day  then 
appearing,  lie  gave  the  word  (still,  of  course,  in  that  bruised  and 
aching  state)  forward !  and  led  his  army  on  to  near  Falkirk, 
where  the  Scottish  forces  were  seen  drawn  up  on  some  stony 
ground,  behind  a  morass.  Here  he  defeated  Wallace,  and 
killed  fifteen  thousand  of  his  men.  With  the  shattered  remain- 
der, Wallace  drew  back  to  Stirling ;  but  being  pursued,  set  fire 
to  the  town,  that  it  might  give  no  help  to  the  English,  and 
escaped.  The  inhabitants  of  Perth  afterwards  set  fire  to  their 
houses  for  the  same  reason  ;  and-the  king,  unable  to  find  pro- 
visions, was  forced  to  withdraw  his  army. 

Another  Robert  Bruce,  the  grandson  of  him  who  had  dis- 
puted the  Scottish  crown  with  Baliol,  was  now  in  arms  against 
the  king  (that  elder  Bruce  being  dead),  and  also  John  Comyn, 
Baliol's  nephew.  These  two  young  men  might  agree  in  oppos- 
ing Edward,  but  could  agree  in  nothing  else,  as  they  were  rivals 
for  the  throne  of  Scotland.  Probably  it  was  because  they  knew 
this,  and  knew  what  troubles  must  arise,  even  if  they  could 
hope  to  get  the  better  of  the  great  English  king,  that  the  prin- 
cipal Scottish  people  applied  to  the  pope  for  his  interference. 
The  pope,  on  the  principle  of  losing  nothing  for  want  of  trying 
to  get  it,  very  coolly  claimed  that  Scotland  belonged  to  him  ;  but 
this  was  a  little  too  much,  and  the  Parliament  in  a  friendly 
manner  told  him  so. 

In  the  spring  time  of  the  year  1303,  the  king  sent  Sir  John 
Segrave,  whom  he  made  Governor  of  Scotland,  with  twenty 
thousand  men  to  reduce  the  rebels.  Sir  John  was  not  as  care- 
ful as  he  should  have  been,  but  encamped  at  Roselyn,  near 


i^o  ''^   CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Edinburgh,  with  his  army  divided  into  three  parts.  The  Scot' 
tish  forces  saw  their  advantage,  fell  on  each  part  separately, 
defeated  each,  and  killed  all  the  prisoners.  Then  came  the 
king  himself  once  more,  as  soon  as  a  great  army  could  be 
raised ;  he  passed  tlirough  the  whole  north  of  Scotland,  laying 
waste  v.'hatsoevcr  came  in  his  way  ;  and  he  took  up  his  winter- 
quarters  at  Dunfermlir.e.  The  Scottish  cause  now  looked  so 
hopeless,  that  Comyn  and  the  other  nobles  made  submission, 
and  received  their  pardons.  Wallace  alone  stood  out.  He 
was  invited  to  surrender,  though  on  no  distinct  pledge  that  his 
life  should  be  spared ;  but  he  still  defied  the  ireful  king,  and 
lived  among  the  steep  crags  of  the  Highland  glens,  v/here  the 
eagles  made  their  nests,  and  where  the  mountain  torrents 
roared,  and  the  white  snow  was  deep,  and  the  bitter  winds  blew 
round  his  unsheltered  head,  as  he  lay  through  many  a  pitch- 
dark  night  wrapped  up  in  his  plaid.  Nothing  could  break  his 
spirit ;  nothing  could  lower  his  courage  ;  nothing  could  induce 
him  to  forget  or  to  forgive  his  country's  wrongs.  Even  when 
the  Castle  of  Stirling,  which  had  long  held  out,  was  besieged 
by  the  king  with  every  kind  of  military  engine  then  in  use : 
even  when  the  lead  upon  cathedral  roofs  was  taken  down  to 
help  to  make  them  ;  even  when  the  king,  though  an  old  man, 
commanded  in  the  siege  as  if  he  were  a  youth,  being  so  resolved 
to  conquer  ;  even  when  the  brave  garrison  (then  found  with 
amazement  to  be  not  two  hundred  people,  including  several 
ladies)  were  starved  and  beaten  out,  and  were  made  to  submit 
on  their  knees  and  with  every  form  of  disgrace  that  could  ag- 
gravate their  sufferings, — even  then,  when  there  was  not  a  ray 
of  hope  in  Scotland,  William  Wallace  was  as  proud  and  firm 
as  if  he  had  beheld  the  powerful  and  relentless  Edward  lying 
dead  at  his  feet. 

Who  betrayed  William  Wallace  in  the  end  is  not  quite  cer- 
tain. That  he  was  betrayed — probably  by  an  attendant — is 
too  true.  He  was  taken  to  the  Castle  of  Dumbarton,  under 
Sir  John  Menteith,  and  hence  to  London,  where  the  great  fame 
of  his  bravery  and  resolution  attracted  immense  concourses  of 
people  to  behold  him.  He  was  tried  in  Westminster  Hall, 
with  a  crown  of  laurel  on  his  head, — it  is  supposed  because  he 
was  reported  to  have  said  that  he  ought  to  wear,  or  that  he 
would  wear,  a  crown  there, — and  was  found  guilty  as  a  robber, 
a  murdeier,  and  a  traitor.  What  they  called  a  robber  (he  said 
to  those  who  tried  him),  he  was,  because  he  had  taken  spoil 
from  the  king's  men.  What  they  called  a  murderer,  he  was, 
because   he  had  slain  an   insolent   Englishman.      What    they 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIRST.  131 

called  a  traitor,  he  was  not,  for  he  had  never  sworn  allegiance 
to  the  king,  and  had  ever  scorned  to  do  it.  He  was  dragged 
at  the  tails  of  horses  to  West  Smithfield,  and  there  hanged  on 
a  high  gallows,  torn  open  before  he  was  dead,  beheaded,  and 
quartered.  His  head  was  set  upon  a  pole  on  London  Bridge, 
his  right  arm  was  sent  to  Newcastle,  his  left  arm  to  Berwick, 
his  legs  to  Perth  and  Aberdeen.  But  if  King  Edward  had  had 
his  body  cut  into  inches,  and  had  sent  every  separate  inch  into 
a  separate  town,  he  could  not  have  dispersed  it  half  so  far  and 
wide  as  his  fame.  Wallace  will  be  remembered  in  songs  and 
stories  while  there  are  songs  and  stories  in  the  English  tongue ; 
and  Scotland  will  hold  him  dear  while  her  lakes  and  moun- 
tains last. 

Released  from  this  dreaded  enemy,  the  king  made  a  fairer 
plan  of  government  for  Scotland,  divided  the  offices  of  honor 
among  Scottish  gentlemen  and  English  gentlemen,  forgave  past 
offences,  and  thought,  in  his  old  age,  that  his  work  was  done. 

Cut  he  deceived  himself.  Comyn  and  Bruce  conspired, 
and  made  an  appointment  to  meet  at  Dumfries,  in  the  church 
of  the  Minorites.  There  is  a  story  that  Comyn  was  false  to 
Bruce,  and  had  informed  against  him  to  the  king  ;  that  Bruce 
was  warned  of  his  danger  and  the  necessity  of  flight,  by  re- 
ceiving one  night  as  he  sat  at  supper,  from  his  friend  the  Earl 
of  Gloucester,  twelve  pennies  and  a  pair  of  spurs ;  that  as  he 
was  riding  angrily  to  keep  his  appointment  (through  a  snow- 
storm, with  his  horse's  shoes  reversed  that  he  might  not  be 
tracked),  he  met  an  evil  looking  serving-man,  a  messenger  of 
Comyn,  whom  he  killed,  and  concealed  in  whose  dress  he 
found  letters  that  proved  Comyn's  treachery.  However  this 
may  be,  they  were  likely  enough  to  quarrel  in  any  case,  being 
hot-headed  rivals  ;  and,  whatever  they  quarrelled  about,  they 
certainly  did  quarrel  in  the  church  where  they  met  ;  and  Bruce 
drew  his  dagger,  and  stabbed  Comyn,  who  fell  upon  the  pave- 
ment. When  Bruce  came  out,  pale  and  disturbed,  the  friends 
who  were  waiting  for  him  asked  what  was  the  matter  ?  "  I 
think  I  have  killed  Comyn,"  said  he.  "  You  only  think  so  .?  " 
returned  one  of  them  ;  "  I  will  make  sure  !  "  and  going  into  the 
church  and  finding  him  alive,  stabbed  him  again  and  again. 
Knowing  that  the  king  would  never  forgive  this  new  deed  of  vio- 
lence, the  party  then  declared  Bruce  King  of  Scotland  ;  got  him 
crowned  at  Scone, — without  the  chair  ;  and  set  up  the  rebellious 
standard  once  again. 

When  the  king  heard  of  it,  he  kindled  with  fiercer  anger 
than  he  had  ever  shown  yet.     He  caused  the  Prince  of  Wales 


,32  ^  C///L  D'S  HIS  TOR  V  OF  ENGLAND. 

and  two  hundred  and  seventy  of  the  young  nobility  to  be 
knighted, — the  trees  in  the  Temple  Gardens  were  cut  down  to 
make  room  for  their  tents,  and  they  watched  their  armor  all 
night,  according  to  the  old  usage,  some  in  the  Temple  Church, 
some  in  Westminster  Abbey; — and  at  the  public  feast  which 
then  took  place,  he  swore,  by  Heaven,  and  by  two  swans 
covered  with  gold  network  which  his  minstrels  placed  upon 
the  table,  that  he  would  avenge  the  death  of  Comyn,  and  would 
punish  the  false  Bruce.  And  before  all  the  company,  he 
charged  the  prince,  his  son,  in  case  that  he  should  die  before 
accomplishing  his  vow,  not  to  bury  him  until  it  was  fulfilled. 
Next  morning,  the  prince  and  the  rest  of  the  young  knights 
rode  away  to  the  Border-country  to  join  the  English  army,  and 
the  kmg,  now  weak  and  sick,  followed  in  a  horse-litter. 

Bruce,  after  losing  a  batde,  and  undergoing  many  dangers 
and  much  misery,  fled  to  Ireland,  where  he  lay  concealed 
through  the  winter.  That  winter,  Edward  passed  in  hunting 
down  and  executing  Bruce's  relations  and  adherents,  sparing 
neither  youth  nor  age,  showing  no  touch  of  pity  or  sign  of 
mercy  In  the  following  spring  Bruce  reappeared,  and  gained 
some  victories.  In  these  frays,  both  sides  were  grievously 
cruel ;  for  instance,  Bruce's  two  brothers,  being  taken  captives, 
desperately  wounded,  were  ordered  by  the  king  to  instant  execu- 
tion. Bruce's  friend,  Sir  John  Douglas,  taking  his  own  Castle 
of  Douglas  out  of  the  hands  of  an  English  lord,  roasted  the 
dead  bodies  of  the  slaughtered  garrison  in  a  great  fire  made  of 
every  movable  within  it ;  which  dreadful  cookery  his  men 
called  the  Douglas  larder.  Bruce,  still  successful,  however, 
drove  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  the  Earl  of  Gloucester  into 
the  Castle  of  Ayr,  and  laid  siege  to  it. 

The  king,  who  had  been  laid  up  all  the  winter,  but  had 
directed  the  army  from  his  sick-bed,  now  advanced  to  Carlisle, 
and  there,  causing  the  litter  in  which  he  had  travelled  to  be 
placed  in  the  cathedral  as  an  offering  to  Heaven,  mounted  h.i^ 
horse  once  more,  and  for  the  last  time.  He  was  now  sixty-nine 
years  old,  and  had  reigned  thirty-five  years.  He  was  so 
ill,  that  in  four  days  he  could  go  no  more  than  six  miles  ;  still, 
even  at  that  pace,  he  went  on,  and  resolutely  kept  his  face 
towards  the  Border.  At  length  he  lay  down  at  the  village  of 
Burgh-upon-Sands  ;  and  there,  telling  those  around  him  to  im- 
press upon  the  prince  that  he  was  to  remember  his  father's  vow, 
and  was  never  to  rest  until  he  had  thoroughly  subdued  Scot- 
land, he  yielded  up  his  last  breath. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SECOND.         133 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ENGLAND  UNDER   EDWARD  THE  SECOND. 

King  Edward  the  Second,  the  first  Prince  of  Wales,  was 
twenty-three  years  old  when  his  father  died,  There  was  a  cer- 
tain favorite  of  his,  a  young  man  from  Gascony,  named  Piers 
Gaveston,  of  whom  his  father  had  so  much  disapproved  that  he 
had  ordered  him  out  of  England,  and  had  made  his  son  swear 
by  the  side  of  his  sick  bed,  never  to  bring  him  back.  But  the 
prince  no  sooner  found  himself  king  than  he  broke  his  oath,  as 
so  many  other  princes  and  kings  did  (they  were  far  too  ready  to 
take  oaths),  and  sent  for  his  dear  friend  immediately. 

Now  this  same  Gaveston  was  handsome  enough,  but  was  a 
reckless,  insolent,  audacious  fellow.  He  was  detested  by  the 
proud  English  lords  ;  not  only  because  he  had  such  power  over 
the  king,  and  made  the  court  such  a  dissipated  place,  but  also 
because  he  could  ride  better  than  they  at  tournaments,  and  was 
used,  in  his  impudence,  to  cut  very  bad  jokes  on  them, — calling 
pne  the  old  hog  ;  another  the  stage-player;  another  the  Jew; 
another  the  black  dog  of  Ardenne.  This  was  as  poor  wit  as 
need  be,  but  it  made  those  lords  very  wroth  ;  and  the  surly  Earl 
of  Warwick,  who  was  the  black  dog,  swore  that  the  time  should 
come  when  Piers  Gaveston  should  feel  the  black  dog's  teeth. 

It  was  not  come  yet,  however,  nor  did  it  seem  to  be  coming. 
The  king  made  him  Earl  of  Cornwall,  and  gave  him  vast  riches  ; 
and  when  the  king  went  over  to  France  to  marry  the  French 
princess,  Isabella,  daughter  of  Philip  le  Bel,  who  was  said  to  be 
the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the  world,  he  made  Gaveston  regent 
of  the  Kingdom.  His  splendid  marriage  ceremony  in  the 
Church  of  Our  Lady  at  Boulogne,  where  there  were  four  kings 
and  three  queens  present  (quite  a  pack  of  court-cards,  for  I 
daresay  the  knaves  were  not  wanting),  being  over,  he  seemed  to 
care  little  or  nothing  for  his  beautiful  wife,  but  was  wild  with  im- 
patience to  meet  Gaveston  again. 

When  he  landed  at  home,  he  paid  no  attention  to  anybody 
else,  but  ran  into  the  favorite's  arms  before  a  great  concourse  of 
people,  and  hugged  him,  and  kissed  him,  and  called  him  his 
brother.  At  the  coronation  which  soon  followed,  Gaveston  was 
the  richest  and  brightest  of  all  the  glittering  company  there, 


134 


A  CrilLD'S  ins  TORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


and  had  the  honor  of  carrying  the  crown.  This  made  the  proud 
lords  fiercer  than  ever ;  the  people,  too,  despised  the  favorite, 
and  would  never  call  him  Earl  of  Cornwall,  however  much  he 
complained  to  the  king  and  asked  him  to  punish  them  for  not 
doing  so,  but  persisted  in  styling  him  plain  Piers  Gaveston. 

The  barons  were  so  unceremonious  with  the  king  in  giving 
^im  to  understand  that  they  would  not  bear  this  favorite,  that 
the  king  was  obliged  to  send  him  out  of  the  country.  The 
favorite  himself  was  made  to  take  an  oath  (more  oaths  !)  that 
he  would  never  come  back  ;  and  the  barons  supposed  him  to  be 
banished  in  disgrace,  until  they  heard  that  he  was  appointed 
Governor  of  Ireland.  Even  this  was  not  enough  for  the  be- 
sotted king,  who  brought  him  home  again  in  a  year's  time,  and 
not  only  disgusted  the  court  and  the  people  by  his  doting  folly, 
but  offended  his  beautiful  wife,  too,  who  never  liked  him  after- 
wards. 

He  had  now  the  old  loyal  want, — of  money, — and  the  barons 
had  the  nev/  power  of  positively  refusing  to  let  him  raise  any. 
He  summoned  a  parliament  at  York  ;  the  barons  refused  to 
make  one  while  the  favorite  was  near  him.  He  summoned 
another  parliament  at  Westminster,  and  sent  Gaveston  away. 
Then  the  barons  came  completely  armed,  and  appointed  a  com- 
mittee of  themselves  to  correct  abuses  in  the  state,  and  in  the 
kino:'s  household.  He  got  some  money  on  these  conditions, 
and  directly  set  off  with  Gaveston  to  the  Border-country,  where 
they  spent  it  in  idling  away  the  time  and  feasting,  while  Bruce 
made  ready  to  drive  the  English  out  of  Scotland.  For,  though 
the  old  king  had  even  made  this  poor  weak  son  of  his  swear  (as 
some  say)  that  he  would  not  bury  his  bones,  but  would  have 
them  boiled  clean  in  a  caldron,  and  carried  before  the  English 
army  until  Scotland  was  entirely  subdued,  the  second  Edward 
was  so  unlike  the  first  that  Bruce  gained  strength  and  power 
every  day. 

The  committee  of  nobles,  after  some  months  of  deliberation, 
ordained  that  the  king  should  henceforth  call  a  parliament  to- 
gether once  every  year,  and  even  twice  if  necessary,  instead  of 
summoning  it  only  when  he  chose.  Further,  that  Gaveston 
should  once  more  be  banished,  and  this  time  on  pain  of  death 
if  he  ever  came  back.  The  king's  tears  were  of  no  avail ;  he 
was  obliged  to  send  his  favorite  to  Flanders.  As  soon  as  he 
had  done  so,  however,  he  dissolved  the  parliament,  with  the 
low  cunning  of  a  mere  fool,  and  set  off  to  the  north  of  England, 
thinking  to  get  an  army  about  him  to  oppose  the  nobles.  And 
once  again  he  brought  Gaveston  home,  and  heaped  upon  him 


ENGLAKD  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SECOND. 


^35 


all   the   riches   and  titles  of  which   the  barons  had  deprived 
him. 

The  lords  saw  now  that  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  put 
the  favorite  to  death.  They  could  have  done  so  legally,  accord- 
ing to  the  terms  of  his  banishment ;  but  they  did  so,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  in  a  shabby  manner.  Led  by  the  Earl  of  Lancaster,  the 
king's  cousin,  they  first  of  all  attacked  the  king  and  Gavestori 
at  Newcastle.  They  had  time  to  escape  by  sea  ;  and  the  mean 
king,  having  his  precious  Gaveston  with  him,  was  quite  content 
to  leave  his  lovely  wife  behind.  When  they  were  comparatively 
safe,  they  separated ;  the  king  went  to  York  to  collect  a  force 
of  soldiers,  and  the  favorite  shut  hunself  up,  in  the  meantime, 
in  Scarborough  Castle  overlooking  the  sea.  This  was  what  the 
barons  wanted.  They  knew  that  the  castle  could  not  hold  out  ; 
they  attacked  it,  and  made  Gaveston  surrender.  He  delivered 
^limseif  up  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, — that  loid  whom  he  had 
called  the  Jew, — on  the  earl's  pledging  his  faith  and  knightly 
word,  that  no  harm  should  happen  to  him  and  no  violence  be 
done  him. 

Nov/  it  was  agreed  with  Gaveston,  that  he  should  be  taken 
to  the  Castle  of  Wallingford,  and  there  kept  in  honorable 
custody.  They  travelled  as  far  as  Dedington,  near  Banbury, 
where,  in  the  castle  of  that  place,  they  stopped  for  a  night  to 
rest.  Whether  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  left  his  prisoner  there, 
knowing  what  would  happen,  or  really  left  him,  thinking  no 
harm,  and  only  going  (as  he  pretended)  to  visit  his  wife,  the 
countess,  who  was  in  the  neighborhood,  is  no  great  matter  now  ; 
in  any  case,  he  was  bound  as  an  honorable  gentleman  to  protect 
his  prisoner,  and  he  did  not  do  it.  In  the  morning,  while  the  fa- 
vorite was  yet  in  bed,  he  was  required  to  dress  himself,  and  come 
down  into  the  court-yard.  He  did  so  without  anv  mistrust,  but 
started  and  turned  pale  when  he  found  it  full  of  strange  armed 
men.  "  I  think  you  know  me  t  "  said  the  leader,  also  armed 
from  head  to  foot.     ''  I  am  the  black  dog  of  Ardenne." 

The  time  was  come  when  Piers  Gaveston  was  to  feel  the 
black  dog's  teeth  indeed.  They  set  him  on  a  mule,  and  carried 
him  in  mock  state  and  with  military'  music  to  the  black  dog's 
kennel,  Warwick  Castle,  where  a  hasty  council,  composed  of 
some  great  noblemen,  considered  what  should  be  done  with 
him.  Some  were  for  sparing  him  ;  but  one  loud  voice — it  was 
the  black  dog's  bark,  I  daresay — sounded  through  the  castle 
hall,  uttering  these  words,  "  You  have  the  fox  in  your  power. 
Let  him  go  now,  and  3'ou  must  hunt  him  again." 

They  sentenced  him  to  death.     He  threw  himself  at  the  fee* 


136 


A  CniLirs  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


of  the  Earl  of  Lancaster, — the  old  hog ;  but  the  old  hog  was  as 
savage  as  the  dog.  He  was  taken  out  upon  the  pleasant  road 
leading  from  Warwick  to  Coventry,  where  the  beautiful  river 
Avon,  by  which,  long  afterwards,  Wilham  Shakespeare  was 
born  and  now  lies  buried,  sparkled  in  the  bright  landscape  of 
the  beautiful  IMay-day  .  and  there  they  struck  off  his  wretched 
head,  and  stained  the  dust  with  his  blood. 

When  the  king  heard  of  this  black  deed,  in  his  grief  and 
rage  he  denounced  relentless  war  against  his  barons;  and  both 
sides  were  in  arms  for  half  a  year.  But  it  then  became  nec- 
essary for  them  to  join  their  forces  against  Bruce,  who  had 
used  the  time  well  while  they  v/ere  divided,  and  had  now  a  great 
power  in  Scotland. 

Intelligence  was  brought  that  Bruce  was  then  besieging 
Stirling  Castle,  and  that  the  governor  had  been  obliged  to 
pledge  himself  to  surrender  it,  unless  he  should  be  relieved  be- 
fore a  certain  day.  Hereupon  the  king  ordered  his  nobles  and 
their  fighting  men  to  meet  him  at  Berwick ;  but  the  nobles 
cared  so  little  for  the  king,  and  so  neglected  the  summons  and 
lost  time,  that  only  on  the  day  before  that  appointed  for  the 
surrender  did  the  king  find  himself  at  Stirling,  and  even  then 
with  a  smaller  force  than  he  had  expected  However,  he  had 
altogether  a  hundred  thousand  men,  and  Bruce  had  not  more 
than  forty  thousand  ,  but  Bruce's  army  was  strongly  posted  in 
three  square  columns,  on  the  ground  lying  between  the  Burn, 
or  Brook,  of  Bannock  and  the  walls  of  Stirling  Castle 

On  the  very  evening  when  the  king  came  up,  Bruce  did  a 
brave  act  that  encouraged  his  men  He  was  seen  by  a  certain 
Henry  de  Bohun,  an  English  knight,  riding  about  before  his 
army  on  a  little  horse,  with  a  light  battle-axe  in  his  hand,  and  a 
crown  of  gold  on  his  head„  This  English  knight,  who  was 
mounted  on  a  strong  war-horse,  cased  in  steel,  strongly  armed, 
and  able  (as  he  thought)  to  overthrow  Bruce  by  crushing  him 
with  his  mere  weight,  set  spurs  to  his  great  charger,  rode  on 
him,  and  made  a  thrust  at  him  with  his  heavy  spear.  Bruce 
parried  the  thrust,  and  with  one  blow  ot  his  battle-axe  split  his 
skull. 

The  Scottish  men  did  not  forget  this,  next  day,  when  the 
battle  raged.  Randolph,  Bruce's  valiant  nephev/,  rode,  with 
the  small  body  of  men  he  commanded,  into  such  a  host  of  the 
English,  all  shining  in  polished  armor  in  the  sunlight,  that  they 
seemed  to  be  swallowed  up  and  lost,  as  if  they  had  plunged 
into  the  sea.  But  they  fought  so  well,  and  did  such  dreadful 
execution,  that  the  English  staggered.     Then  came  Bruce  hinv 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SECOND.        13^ 

self  upon  them,  with  all  the  rest  of  his  army.  While  they  were 
thus  hard-pressed  and  amazed,  there  appeared  upon  the  hills 
what  they  supposed  to  be  a  new  Scottish  army,  but  what  were 
really  only  the  camp-followers,  in  number  fifteen  thousand, 
whom  Bruce  had  taught  to  show  themselves  at  that  place  and 
time.  The  Earl  of  Gloucester,  commanding  the  English  horse, 
made  a  last  rush  to  change  the  fortune  of  the  day,  but  Bruce 
(like  Jack  the  Giant-killer  in  the  story)  had  had  pits  dug  in  the 
ground,  and  covered  over  with  turfs  and  stakes.  Into  these,  as 
they  gave  way  beneath  the  weight  of  the  horses,  riders  and 
horses  rolled  by  hundreds.  The  English  were  completely 
routed ;  all  their  treasure,  stores,  and  engines  were  taken  by 
the  Scottish  men  ;  so  many  wagons  and  other  wheeled  vehicles 
were  seized,  that  it  is  related  that  they  would  have  reached,  if 
they  had  been  drawn  out  in  a  line,  one  hundred  and  eighty 
miles.  The  fortunes  of  Scotland  were,  for  the  time,  completely 
changed ;  and  never  was  a  battle  won  more  famous  upon 
Scottish  ground  than  this  great  battle  of  Bannockburn. 

Plague  and  famine  succeeded  in  England  ;  and  still  the 
powerless  king  and  his  disdainful  lords  were  always  in  con- 
tention. Some  of  the  turbulent  chiefs  of  Ireland  made  pro- 
posals to  Bruce  to  accept  the  rule  of  that  country.  He  sent  his 
brother  Edward  to  them,  who  was  crowned  King  of  Ireland. 
He  afterwards  went  himself  to  help  his  brother  in  his  Irish 
wars ;  but  his  brother  was  defeated  in  the  end  and  killed. 
Robert  Bruce,  returning  to  Scotland,  still  increased  his  strength 
there. 

As  the  king's  ruin  had  begun  in  a  favorite,  so  it  seemed 
likely  to  end  in  one.  He  w^as  too  poor  a  creature  to  rely  at  all 
upon  himself ;  and  his  new  favorite  was  one  Hugh  le  Despenser, 
the  son  of  a  gentleman  of  ancient  family.  Hugh  was  hand- 
some and  brave  ;  but  he  was  the  favorite  of  a  weak  king,  whom 
no  man  cared  a  rush  for,  and  that  was  a  dangerous  place  to 
hold.  The  nobles  leagued  against  him,  because  the  king  liked 
him ;  and  they  lay  in  wait  both  for  his  ruin  and  his  father's. 
Now  the  king  had  married  him  to  the  daughter  of  the  late  Earl 
of  Gloucester,  and  had  given  both  him  and  his  father  great  pos- 
sessions in  Wales.  In  their  endeavors  to  extend  these,  they 
gave  violent  offense  to  an  angry  Welsh  gentleman,  named  John 
de  Mowbray,  and  to  divers  other  angry  Welsh  gentlemen,  who 
resorted  to  arms,  took  their  castles,  and  seized  their  estates. 
The  Earl  of  Lancaster  had  first  placed  the  favorite  (who  was  a 
poor  relation  of  his  own)  at  court,  and  he  considered  his  own 
dignity  offended  by  the  preference  he  received  and  the  honors 


138  A  Cm/'.yS  1/ IS  TORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

he  acquired  :  so  ne,  and  the  barons  who  were  his  friends, 
joined  the  Wehhmen,  marched  on  London,  and  sent  a  message 
to  the  king  demanding  to  have  the  favorite  and  his  father 
banished.  At  f»rst  the  king  unaccountably  took  it  into  his  head 
to  be  spirited;  and  to  send  them  a  bold  reply ,  but  when  they 
quartered  t'icmselves  around  Holborn  and  Clerkenwell,  and 
went  dovM  armed  to  the  Parliament  at  Westminster,  he  gave 
way,  ar  J  complied  with  their  demands. 

His  turn  of  triumph  came  sooner  than  he  expected.  It 
irooe  out  of  an  accidental  circumstance.  The  beautiful  queent 
h'ippening  to  be  travelling,  came  one  night  to  one  of  the  royal 
'jastles,  and  demanded  to  be  lodged  and  entertained  there  until 
morning.  The  governor  of  this  castle,  who  was  one  of  the  en- 
raged lords,  was  away,  and  in  his  absence,  his  wife  refused 
admission  to  the  queen  ^  a  scuffle  took  place  among  the  com- 
mon men  on  either  side,  and  some  of  the  royal  attendants  were 
killed.  The  people,  who  cared  nothing  for  the  king,  were  very 
angry  that  their  beautiml  queen  should  be  thus  rudely  treated 
in  her  own  dominions  ;  and  the  king,  taking  advantage  of  this 
feehng,  besieged  the  castle,  took  it,  and  then  called  the  two 
Despensers  home.  Upon  this  the  confederate  lords  and  the 
Welshmen  went  over  to  Bruce.  The  king  encountered  them  at 
Boroughbridge,  gained  the  victory,  and  took  a  number  of  dis- 
tinguished prisoners  ;  among  them,  the  Earl  of  Lancaster,  now 
an  old  man,  upon  whose  destruction  he  was  resolved.  This 
Earl  was  taken  to  his  own  castle  of  Pontefract,  and  there  tried 
and  found  guilty  by  an  unfair  court  appointed  for  the  purpose  ; 
he  was  not  even  allowed  to  speak  in  his  own  defence.  He  was 
insulted,  pelted,  mounted  on  a  starved  pony  without  saddle  or 
bridle,  carried  out,  and  beheaded.  Eight-and-twenty  knights 
were  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered.  When  the  king  had  de- 
spatched this  bloody  work,  and  had  made  a  fresh  and  a  long 
truce  wdth  Bruce,  he  took  the  Despensers  into  greater  favor 
than  ever,  and  made  the  father  Earl  of  Winchester. 

One  prisoner,  and  an  important  one,  who  was  taken  at 
Boroughbridge,  made  his  escape,  however,  and  turned  the  tide 
against  the  king.  This  was  Roger  Mortimer,  always  resolutely 
opposed  to  him,  who  was  sentenced  to  death,  and  placed  for 
safe  custody  in  the  Tower  of  London.  He  treated  his  guards 
to  a  quantity  of  wine  into  which  he  had  put  a  sleeping  potion  * 
and  when  they  were  insensible,  broke  out  of  his  dungeon,  got 
into  a  kitchen,  climbed  up  the  chimney,  let  himself  down  from 
the  roof  of  the  building  with  a  rope-ladder,  passed  the  sentries 
got  dov^n  to  the  river,  and  made  away  in  a  boat  to  where 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD   THE  SECOND.         13Q 

servants  and  horses  were  waiting  for  him.  He  finally  escaped 
to  France,  where  Charles  le  Bel,  the  brother  of  the  beautiful 
queen,  was  king.  Charles  sought  to  quarrel  with  the  King  of 
England,  on  pretence  of  his  not  having  come  to  do  him  homage 
at  his  coronation.  It  was  proposed  that  the  beautiful  queen 
should  go  over  to  arrange  the  dispute  :  she  went,  and  wrote 
home  to  the  khig,  that  as  he  was  sick  and  could  not  come  to 
France  himself,  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  send  over  the 
young  prince,  their  son,  who  was  only  twelve  years  old,  who 
could  do  homage  to  her  brother  in  his  stead,  and  in  whose  com- 
pany she  would  immediately  return.  The  king  sent  him  ;  but 
both  he  and  the  queen  remained  at  the  French  court,  and  Roger 
Mortimer  became  the  queen's  lover. 

When  the  king  wrote,  again  and  again,  to  the  queen  to  come 
home,  she  did  not  reply  that  she  despised  him  too  much  to  live 
with  him  any  more  (which  was  the  truth),  but  said  she  was 
afraid  of  the  two  Despensers.  In  short,  her  design  was  to  over- 
throw the  favorites'  power,  and  the  king's  power,  such  as  it 
was,  and  invade  England.  Having  obtained  a  French  force  of 
tvv^o  thousand  men,  and  being  joined  by  all  the  English  exiles 
then  in  France,  she  landed,  within  a  year,  at  Orewell,  in  Suffolk, 
where  she  was  immediately  joined  by  the  Earls  of  Kent  and 
Norfolk,  the  king's  two  brothers  ;  by  other  powerful  noblemen  ; 
and  lastly,  by  the  first  English  general  who  was  despatched  to 
check  her,  who  went  over  to  her  with  all  his  men.  The  people 
of  London,  receiving  these  tidings,  would  do  nothing  for  the 
king,  but  broke  open  the  Tower,  let  out  all  his  prisoners,  and 
threw  up  their  caps  and  hurrahed  for  the  beautiful  queen. 

The  king,  with  his  two  favorites,  fled  to  Bristol,  where  he 
left  old  Despenser  in  charge  of  the  town  and  castle,  while  he 
went  on  with  the  son  to  Wales.  The  Bristol  men  being  opposed 
to  the  king,  and  it  being  impossible  to  hold  the  town  with 
enemies  everywhere  within  the  walls,  Despenser  yielded  it  up 
on  the  third  day,  and  was  instantly  brought  to  trial  for  having 
traitorously  influenced  what  was  called  "the  king's  mind," — ■ 
though  I  doubt  if  the  king  ever  had  any.  He  was  a  venerable 
old  man,  upwards  of  ninety  years  of  age  ;  but  his  age  gained  no 
respect  or  mercy.  He  was  hanged,  torn  open  while  he  was  yet 
alive,  cut  up  into  pieces,  and  thrown  to  the  dogs.  His  son 
was  soon  taken,  tried  at  Hereford  before  the  same  judge,  on  a 
long  series  of  foolish  charges,  found  guilty,  and  hanged  upon  a 
gallows  fifty  feet  high,  with  a  chaplet  of  nettles  round  his  head. 
His  poor  old  father  and  he  were  innocent  enough  of  any  wors(?  ' 
crimes   than   the  crime  of  having  been  friends  of  a  king,  on 


1 40  A  CrrlL  D'S  HIS  TOR  V  OF  E.VGL  A  ,VD. 

whom,  33  a  mere  man,  they  would  never  have  deigned  to  cast 
a  favorable  look.  It  is  a  bad  crime,  I  know,  and  leads  to 
worse  ;  but  many  lords  and  gentlemen — I  even  think  some 
ladies,  too,  if  I  recollect  right — have  committed  it  in  England, 
who  have  neither  been  given  to  the  dogs,  nor  hanged  up  fiftjl 
feet  high. 

The  wretched  king  was  running  here  and  there,  all  this  time, 
and  never  getting  anywhere  in  particular,  until  he  gave  himself 
UD,  and  was  taken  off  to  Kenilworth  Castle.  When  he  was 
safely  lodged  there,  the  queen  went  to  London  and  met  the 
Parliament.  And  the  Bishop  of  Hereford,  who  was  the  most 
skilful  of  her  friends,  said.  What  was  to  be  done  now  .-*  Here 
was  an  imbecile,  indolent,  miserable  king  upon  the  throne ! 
wouldn't  it  be  better  to  take  him  off,  and  put  his  son  there  in- 
stead ?  I  don't  know  whether  the  queen  really  pitied  him  at 
this  pass,  but  she  began  to  cry ;  so  the  bishop  said,  "  Well,  my 
lords  and  gentlemen,  what  do  you  think,  upon  the  whole,  of 
sending  down  to  Kenilworth,  and  seeing  if  His  Majesty  (God 
bless  him,  and  forbid  we  should  depose  him  !)  won't  resign  1  " 

My  lords  and  gentlemen  thought  it  a  good  notion ;  so  a 
deputation  of  them  w^ent  down  to  Kenilworth,  and  there  the 
king  came  into  the  great  hall  of  the  castle,  commonly  dressed 
in  a  poor  black  gown  ;  and,  when  he  saw  a  certain  bishop  among 
them,  fell  down,  poor  feeble-headed  man,  and  made  a  wretched 
spectacle  of  himself.  Somebody  lifted  him  up ;  and  then 
Sir  William  Trussel,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
almost  frightened  him  to  death  by  making  him  a  tremendous 
speech,  1o  the  effect  that  he  was  no  longer  a  king,  and  that 
everybody  renounced  allegiance  to  him.  After  which,  Sir 
Thomas  Blount,  the  steward  of  the  household,  nearly  finished 
him,  by  coming  forward  and  breaking  his  white  wand,  which 
was  a  ceremony  only  performed  at  a  king's  death.  Being  asked 
in  this  pressing  manner  what  he  thought  of  resigning,  the  king 
said  he  thought  it  was  the  best  thing  he  could  do.  So  he  did 
it,  and  they  proclaimed  his  son  next  day. 

I  wish  I  could  close  this  history  by  saying,  that  he  lived  a 
harmless  life  in  the  castle  and  the  castle-gardens  at  Kenilworth, 
many  years  ;  that  he  had  a  favorite,  and  plenty  to  eat  and  drink  ; 
and,  having  that,  wanted  nothing.  But  he  was  shamefully 
humiliated.  He  was  outraged  and  slighted,  and  had  dirty 
water  from  ditches  given  him  to  shave  with,  and  wept,  and  said 
he  would  have  clean  warm  water,  and  was  altogether  very  mis- 
erable. He  was  moved  from  this  castle  to  that  castle,  and 
from  that  castle  to  the  other  castle,  because  this  lord,  or  that 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  THIRD 


141 


lord,  or  the  other  lord,  was  too  kind  to  him  ;  until  at  last  he 
came  to  Berkeley  Castle,  near  the  River  Severn,  where  (the 
Lord  Berkeley  being  then  ill  and  absent)  he  fell  into  the  hands 
of  two  black  ruffians,  called  Thomas  Gournay  and  William 
Ogle. 

One  night, — it  was  the  night  of  September  21,  1327, — dread- 
ful screams  were  heard  by  the  startled  people  in  the  neighbor- 
ing town,  ringing  through  the  thick  w^alls  of  the  castle,  and 
the  dark  deep  night ;  and  they  said,  as  they  were  thus  horribly 
awakened  from  their  sleep,  "  May  Heaven  be  merciful  to  the 
king  ;  for  those  cries  forbode  that  no  good  is  being  done  to  him 
in  his  dismal  prison!"  Next  morning  he  was  dead, —  not 
bruised,  or  stabbed,  or  marked  upon  the  body,  but  much  dis- 
torted in  the  face  ;  and  it  was  whispered  afterwards,  that  those 
two  villains,  Gournay  and  Ogle,  had  burnt  up  his  inside  with  a 
red-hot  iron. 

If  you  ever  come  near  Gloucester,  and  see  the  centre  tower 
of  its  beautiful  cathedral,  with  its  four  rich  pinnacles  rising 
liglitly  in  the  air,  you  may  remember  that  the  wretched  Edward 
the  Second  was  buried  in  the  old  abbey  of  that  ancient  city,  at 
forty-three  years  old,  after  being  for  nineteen  years  and  a  half 
a  perfectly  incapable  king. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ENGLAND    UNDER    EDWARD    THE    THIRD. 

Roger  Mortimer,  the  queen's  lover  (who  escaped  to  France 
In  the  last  chapter),  was  far  from  profiting  by  the  examples  he 
had  had  of  the  fate  of  favorites.  Having,  through  the  queen's 
influence,  come  into  possession  of  the  estates  of  the  two  De- 
spensers,  he  became  extremely  proud  and  ambitious,  and  sought 
to  be  the  real  ruler  of  England.  The  young  king,  who  was 
crowned  at  fourteen  years  of  age  with  all  the  usual  solemnities, 
resolved  not  to  bear  this,  and  soon  pursued  Mortimer  to  his 
ruin. 

The  people  themselves  were  not  fond  of  Mortimer, — first, 
because  he  v.as  .1  royal  favorite  ;  .secondly,  because  he  was  sup- 
posed to  have  helped  to  make  a  peace  with  Scotland  which  now 


,42  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

took  place,  and  in  virtue  of  which  the  young  king's  sister  Joan, 
only  seven  years  old,  was  promised  in  marriage  to  David,  the  son 
and  heir  of  Robert  Bruce,  who  was  only  five  years  old.  The 
nobles  hated  Mortimer  because  of  his  pride,  riches,  and  power. 
They  went  so  far  as  to  take  up  arms  against  him  ;  but  were 
obliged  to  submit.  The  Earl  of  Kent,  one  of  those  who  did  so, 
but  who  afterwards  went  over  to  Mortimer  and  the  queen,  was 
made  an  example  of  in  the  following  cruel  manner. 

He  seems  to  have  been  anything  but  a  wise  old  earl ;  and 
he  was  persuaded  by  the  agents  of  the  favorite  and  the  queen, 
that  poor  King  Edward  the  Second  was  not  really  dead  ;  and 
thus  was  betrayed  into  wTiting  letters  favoring  his  rightful  claim 
to  the  throne.  This  was  made  out  to  be  high  treason  ;  and  he 
was  tried,  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  executed.  They 
took  the  poor  old  lord  outside  the  town  of  Winchester,  and 
there  kept  him  waiting  some  three  or  four  hours,  until  they 
could  find  somebody  to  cut  off  his  head.  At  last,  a  convict 
said  he  would  do  it,  if  the  government  would  pardon  him  in 
return  ;  and  they  gave  him  the  pardon,  and,  at  one  blow,  he 
put  the  Earl  of  Kent  out  of  his  last  suspense. 

While  the  queen  was  in  France,  she  had  found  a  lovely  and 
good  young  lady  named  Philippa,  who  she  thought  would 
make  an  excellent  wife  for  her  son.  The  young  king  married 
this  lady,  soon  after  he  came  to  the  throne  ;  and  her  first 
child,  Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  afterwards  became  celebrated, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  under  the  famous  title  of  Edward 
the  Black  Prince. 

The  young  king,  thinking  the  time  ripe  for  the  downfall  of 
Mortimer,  took  counsel  with  Lord  Montacute  how  he  should  pro- 
ceed. A  parliament  was  going  to  be  held  at  Nottingham  ;  and 
that  lord  recommended  that  the  favorite  should  be  seized  by 
night  in  Nottingham  Castle,  where  he  was  sure  to  be.  Now  this, 
like  many  other  things,  was  more  easily  said  than  done  ;  because, 
to  guard  against  treachery,  the  great  gates  of  the  castle  were 
locked  every  night,  and  the  great  keys  were  carried  up  stairs  to 
the  queen,  who  laid  them  under  her  own  pillow.  But  the  castle 
had  a  governor ;  and  the  governor,  being  Lord  Montacute's 
friend,  confided  to  him  how  he  knew  of  a  secret  passage  under 
ground,  hidden  from  observation  by  the  weeds  and  brambles 
with  which  it  was  overgrown  ;  and  how  through  that  passage 
the  conspirators  might  enter  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  and  go 
straight  to  Mortimer's  room.  Accordingly,  upon  a  certain 
dark  night  at  midnight,  they  made  their  way  through  this  dis- 
mal place,  startling  the  rats,  and  frightening  the  owls  and  bats  ; 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD   THE  THIRD.  143 

and  came  safely  to  the  bottom  of  the  main  tower  of  the  castle, 
where  the  kinr  met  them,  and  took  them  up  a  profoundly  dark 
staircase  in  a  deep  silence.  They  soon  heard  the  voice  of 
Mortimer  in  council,  with  some  friends  ;  and  bursting  into  the 
room  with  a  sudden  noise,  took  him  prisoner.  The  queen 
cried  out  from  her  bedchamber,  "  O,  my  sweet  son,  my  dear 
son,  spare  my  gentle  Mortimer  !  "  They  carried  him  off,  how- 
ever; and,  before  the  next  parliament,  accused  him  of  having 
made  differences  between  the  young  king  and  his  mother,  and 
of  having  brought  about  the  death  of  the  Earl  of  Kent,  and 
even  of  the  late  king  ;  for,  as  you  know  by  this  time,  when 
they  wanted  to  get  rid  of  a  man  in  those  old  days,  they  were 
not  very  particular  of  what  they  accused  him.  Mortimer  was 
found  guilty  of  all  this,  and  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged  at 
Tyburn.  The  king  shut  his  mother  up  in  genteel  confinement, 
where  she  passed  the  rest  of  her  life  ;  and  now  he  became  king 
in  earnest. 

The  first  effort  he  made  was  to  conquer  Scotland.  The 
English  lords  who  had  lands  in  Scotland,  finding  that  their 
rights  were  not  respected  under  the  late  peace,  made  war  on 
their  own  account  ;  choosing  for  their  general,  Edward,  the  son 
of  John  Baliol,  who  made  such  a  vigorous  fight,  that  in  less 
than  two  months  he  won  the  whole  Scottish  kingdom.  He  was 
joined,  when  thus  triumphant,  by  the  king  and  parliament,  and 
he  and  tlie  king  in  person  besieged  the  Scottish  forces  in  Ber- 
wick. The  whole  Scottish  army  coming  to  the  assistance  of 
their  countrymen,  such  a  furious  battle  ensued,  that  thirty 
thousand  men  are. said  to  have  been  killed  in  it.  Baliol  was 
then  crowned  King  of  Scotland,  doing  homage  to  the  King  of 
England  ,  but  little  came  ot  his  successes  after  all  ,  for  the 
Scottish  men  rose  against  Inm,  within  no  very  long  time,  and 
David  Bruce  came  back  within  ten  years  and  took  his  kingdom. 

France  was  a  far  richer  country  than  Scotland,  and  the  king 
had  a  much  greater  mind  to  conquer  it.  So  he  let  Scotland 
alone,  and  pretended  that  he  had  a  claim  to  the  French  throne 
in  right  of  his  mother.  He  had,  in  reality,  no  claim  at  all ;  but 
that  mattered  little  in  those  times.  He  brought  over  to  his 
cause  many  lilile  princes  and  sovereigns,  and  even  courted  the 
alliance  of  tiie  people  of  Flanders, — a  busy,  working  com- 
munity, who  liad  \  cry  small  respect  for  kings,  and  whose  head 
man  was  a  brewer.  With  such  forces  as  he  raised  by  these 
means,  Edward  invaded  France  ;  but  he  did  little  by  that,  ex- 
cept run  into  debt  in  carrying  on  the  war  to  the  extent  of  three 
hundred  thousand  poiinds.     The  next  year  he  did  better,  gain* 


144 


A  CHiI.U'^  hlSTCR'i:  C^  /iSGLAlvD. 


ing  a  great  sea-fight  in  the  harbor  of  Sluys.  This  success,  how* 
ever,  was  very  short-Uved  ;  for  the  Flemings  took  fright  at  the 
siege  of  St.  Omer  and  ran  away,  leaving  their  weapons  and 
baggage  behind  them.  Philip,  the  French  king,  coming  up 
with  his  army,  and  Edward  being  very  anxious  to  decide  the 
war,  proposed  to  settle  the  difference  by  single  combat  with 
him,  or  by  a  fight  of  one  hundred  knights  on  each  side.  The 
French  king  said  he  thanked  him  ;  but,  being  very  well  as  he 
was,  he  would  rather  not.  So,  after  some  skirmishing  and 
talking,  a  short  peace  was  made. 

It  was  soon  broken  by  Kmg  Edward  s  favoring  the  cause 
of  John,  Earl  of  Montford,  a  French  nobleman,  who  asserted  a 
claim  of  his  own  against  the  French  king,  and  offered  to  do 
homage  to  England  for  the  crown  of  France,  if  he  could  obtain 
it  through  England's  help.  This  French  lord  himself  was  soon 
defeated  by  the  French  king's  son,  and  shut  up  in  a  tower  in 
Paris ,  but  his  wife,  a  courageous  and  beautiful  woman,  who  is 
said  to  have  had  the  courage  of  a  man  and  the  heart  of  a  lion, 
assembled  the  people  of  Brittany  where  she  then  was,  and, 
showing  them  her  infant  son,  made  many  pathetic  entreaties 
to  them  not  to  desert  her  and  their  young  lord.  They  took 
fire  at  this  appeal,  and  rallied  round  her  in  the  strong  Castle 
of  Hennebon.  Here  she  was  not  only  besieged  without  by 
the  French,  under  Charles  de  Blois,  but  was  endangered  within 
by  a  dreary  old  bishop,  who  was  always  representing  to  the 
people  what  horrors  they  must  undergo  if  they  were  faithful, — 
first  from  famine,  and  afterwards  from  fire  and  sword.  But 
this  noble  lady,  whose  heart  never  failed  her,  encouraged  her 
soldiers  by  her  own  example  ;  went  from  post  to  post  like  a 
great  general ;  even  mounted  on  horseback  fully  armed,  and, 
issuing  from  the  castle  by  aby-palh,  fell  upon  the  French  camp, 
set  fire  to  the  tents,  and  threw  the  whole  force  into  disorder. 
This  done,  she  got  safely  back  to  Hennebon  again,  and  was 
received  with  loud  shouts  of  joy  by  the  defenders  of  the  castle, 
w^ho  had  given  her  up  for  lost.  As  they  were  now  very  short 
of  provisions,  however,  and  as  they  could  not  dine  off  enthu- 
siasm, and  as  the  old  bishop  was  always  saying,  "  I  told  you 
what  it  would  come  to !  "'  they  began  to  lose  heart,  and  to  talk 
of  yielding  the  castle  up.  The  brave  countess  retiring  to  an 
upper  room,  and  looking  with  great  grief  out  to  sea,  where  she 
expected  relief  from  England,  sav/,  at  this  very  time,  the  Eng- 
lish ships  in  the  distance,  and  was  relieved  and  rescued  !  Sii 
Walter  Manning,  the  English  commander,  so  admired  her 
courage,  that,  being   come  into  the   castle   with  the  English 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD    THE   THIRD.  i^- 

knights,  and  having  made  a  feast  there,  he  assaulted  the  French 
by  way  of"  dessert,  and  beat  them  off  triumphantly.  Then  he 
and  the  knights  came  back  to  the  castle  with  great  joy ;  and 
the  countess,  who  had  watched  them  from  a  high  tower, 
thanked  them  with  all  her  heart,  and  kissed  them  every  one. 

This  noble  lady  distinguished  herself  afterwards  in  a  sea- 
fight  with  the  French  off  Guernsey,  when  she  was  on  her  way 
to  England  to  ask  for  more  troops.  Her  great  spirit  roused 
another  lady,  the  wife  of  another  French  lord  (whom  the 
French  king  very  barbarously  murdered),  to  distinguish  her- 
self scarcely  less.  The  time  was  fast  coming,  however,  when 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  was  to  be  the  great  star  of  this 
French  and  English  war. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  July,  1346,  when  the  king  embarked 
at  Southampton  for  France,  with  an  army  of  about  thirty  thou- 
sand  men  in  all,  attended  by  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  by  sev- 
eral of  the  chief  nobles.  He  landed  at  La  Hogue  in  Normandy ; 
and,  burning  and  destroying  as  he  went,  according  to  custom, 
advanced  up  the  left  bank  of  the  River  Seine,  and  fired  the 
small  towns,  even  close  to  Paris ;  but,  being  watched  from  the 
right  bank  of  the  river  by  the  French  king  and  all  his  army,  it 
came  to  this  at  last,  that  Edward  found  himself,  on  Saturday, 
the  26th  of  August,  1346,  on  a  rising  ground,  behind  the  little 
French  village  of  Crecy,  face  to  face  with  the  French  king's 
force.  And  although  the  French  king  had  an  enormous  army, 
— in  number  more  than  eight  times  his, — he  there  resolved  to 
beat  him  or  be  beaten. 

The  young  prince,  assisted  by  the  Earl  of  Oxford  and  the 
Earl  of  Warwick,  led  the  first  division  of  the  English  army; 
two  other  great  earls  led  the  second ;  and  the  king  the  third. 
When  the  morning  dawned,  the  king  received  the  sacrament 
and  heard  prayers,  and  then,  mounted  on  horseback  with  a 
white  wand  in  his  hand,  rode  from  company  to  company,  and 
rank  to  rank,  cheering  and  encouraging  both  officers  and  men. 
Then  the  whole  army  breakfasted,  each  man  sitting  on  the 
ground  where  he  had  stood  ;  and  then  they  remained  quietly 
on  the  ground  with  their  weapons  ready. 

Up  came  the  French  king  with  all  his  great  force.  It  was 
dark  and  angry  weather  ,  there  was  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  ; 
there  was  a  thunder  storm,  accompanied  with  tremendous  rain  ,* 
the  frightened  birds  flew  screaming  above  the  soldiers'  heads. 
A  certain  captain  in  the  French  army  adx'ised  the  French  king, 
who  was  by  no  means  cheerful,  not  to  begin  the  battle  until  the 
morrow.     The  king,  taking  this  advice,  gave  the  word  to  halt. 


J 46  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

But  those  behind  not  understanding  it,  or  desiring  to  be  fore 
most  with  the  rest,  came  pressing  on.  The  roads  for  a  great 
distance  were  covered  with  this  immense  army,  and  with  the 
common  people  from  the  villages,  who  were  flourishing  theii 
rude  weapons,  and  making  a  great  noise.  Owing  to  these  cir- 
cumstances, the  French  army  advanced  in  the  greatest  confu- 
sion ;  every  French  lord  doing  what  he  liked  with  his  own  men, 
and  putting  out  the  men  of  every  other  French  lord. 

Now  the  king  relied  strongly  upon  a  great  body  of  cross- 
bowmen  from  Genoa ;  and  these  he  ordered  to  the  front  to  be- 
gin the  battle  on  finding  that  he  could  not  stop  it.  They 
shouted  once,  they  shouted  twice,  they  shouted  three  times,  to 
alarm  the  English  archers  ;  but  the  English  would  have  heard 
them  shout  three  thousand  times  and  would  have  never  moved. 
At  last  the  cross-bowmen  went  forward  a  little,  and  began  to 
discharge  their  bolts  ;  upon  which  the  English  let  fly  such  a 
hail  of  arrows  that  the  Genoese  speedily  made  off ;  for  their 
cross-bows,  besides  being  heavy  to  carry,  required  to  be  wound 
up  with  a  handle,  and  consequently  took  time  to  re-load  ;  the 
English,  on  the  other  hand,  could  discharge  their  arrows  almost 
as  fast  as  the  arrows  could  fly. 

When  the  French  king  saw  the  Genoese  turning,  he  cried 
out  to  his  men  to  kill  those  scoundrels,  who  were  doing  harm 
instead  of  service.  This  increased  the  confusion.  Meanwhile 
the  English  archers,  continuing  to  shoot  as  fast  as  ever,  shot 
down  great  numbers  of  the  French  soldiers  and  knights  ;  whom 
certain  sly  Cornish-men  and  Welshmen,  from  the  English  army, 
creeping  along  the  ground,  despatched  with  great  knives. 

The  prince  and  his  division  were  at  this  time  so  hard- 
pressed,  that  the  Earl  of  Warwick  sent  a  message  to  the  king, 
who  was  overlooking  the  battle  from  a  windmill,  beseeching 
him  to  send  more  aid. 

"  Is  my  son  killed  }  "  said  the  king. 

"  No,  sire,  please  God  !  "  returned  the  messenger 

'*  Is  he  wounded  1 "  said  the  king. 

"No,  sire." 

"  Is  he  thrown  to  the  ground  ?  "  said  the  king. 

"  No,  sire,  not  so  ;  but  he  is  very  hard-pressed." 

"  Then,"  said  the  king,  "  go  back  to  those  who  sent  you, 
and  tell  them  I  shall  send  no  aid  ;  because  I  set  my  heart  upon 
my  son  proving  himself  this  day  a  brave  knight,  and  because  I 
am  resolved,  please  God,  that  the  honor  of  a  victory  shall  be 
his." 

These  bold  words,  being  repeated  to  the  prince  and  his 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  THIRD. 


147 


division,  so  raised  their  spirits  that  they  fought  better  than  ever. 
The  King  of  France  charged  gallantly  with  his  men  many  times ; 
but  it  was  of  no  use.  Night  closing  in,  his  horse  was  killed 
under  him  by  an  English  arrow,  and  the  knights  and  nobles, 
who  had  clustered  thick  about  him  early  in  the  day,  were  now 
completely  scattered.  At  last,  some  of  his  few  remaining  follow- 
ers led  him  off  the  field  by  force,  since  he  would  not  retire  of 
himself;  and  they  journeyed  away  to  Amiens.  The  victorious 
English,  lighting  their  watch  fires,  made  merry  on  the  field ; 
and  the  king,  riding  to  meet  his  gallant  son,  took  him  in  his 
arms,  kissed  him,  and  told  him  that  he  had  acted  nobly,  and 
proved  himself  worthy  of  the  clay  and  of  the  crown.  While  it 
was  yet  night,  King  Edward  was  hardly  aware  of  the  victory 
he  had  gained  ;  but  next  day  it  was  discovered  that  eleven 
princes,  twelve  hundred  knights,  and  thirty  thousand  common 
men  lay  dead  upon  the  French  side.  Among  these  was  the  King 
of  Bohemia,  an  old  blind  man  ;  who  having  been  told  that  his 
son  was  wounded  in  the  battle,  and  that  no  force  could  stand 
against  the  Black  Prince,  called  to  him  two  knights,  put  him- 
self on  horseback  between  them,  fastened  the  three  bridles  to- 
gether, and  dashed  in  among  the  English  where  he  was  pres- 
ently slain.  He  bore  as  his  crest  three  white  ostrich  feathers, 
with  the  motto,  Ich  dien^  signifying,  in  English,  "  I  serve."  This 
crest  and  motto  were  taken  by  the  Prince  of  Wales  in  remem- 
brance of  that  famous  day,  and  have  been  borne  by  the  Prince 
of  Wales  ever  since. 

Five  days  after  this  great  battle,  the  king  laid  siege  to 
Calais.  This  siege — ever  afterwards  memorable — lasted  nearly 
a  year.  In  order  to  starve  the  inhabitants  out.  King  Edward 
built  so  many  wooden  houses  for  the  lodgings  of  his  troops, 
that  it  is  said  their  quarters  looked  like  a  second  Calais  sud- 
denly sprung  up  around  the  first.  Early  in  the  siege,  the  gover- 
nor of  the  town  drove  out  what  he  called  the  useless  mouths, 
to  the  number  of  seventeen  hundred  persons,  men  and  women, 
young-  and  old.  King  Edward  allowed  them  to  pass  througli 
his  lines,  and  even  fed  them,  and  dismissed  them  with  money ; 
but  later  in  the  siege  he  was  not  so  merciful, — five  hundred 
more,  who  were  afterwards  driven  out,  dying  of  starvation  and 
misery.  The  garrison  were  so  hard-pressed  at  last,  that  they 
sent  a  letter  to  King  Philip,  telling  him  that  they  had  eaten  all 
the  horses,  all  the  dogs,  and  all  the  rats  and  mice  that  could  be 
found  in  the  place  ;  and  that,  if  he  did  not  relieve  them  they 
must  either  surrender  to  the  English,  or  eat  one  another.  Philip 
made  one  effort  to  give  them  relief ;  but  they  were  so  hemmod 
7 


1 4-8  A  C///LDS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

in  by  the  English  power,  that  he  could  not  succeed,  and  was 
fain  to  leave  the  place.  Upon  this  they  hoisted  the  English 
flag,  and  surrendered  to  King  Edward.  "Tell  your  general," 
said  he  to  the  humble  messengers  who  came  out  of  the  town^ 
"  that  I  require  to  have  sent  here  six  of  the  most  distinguished 
citizens,  bare-legged  and  in  their  shirts,  with  ropes  about  their 
necks ;  and  let  those  six  men  bring  with  them  the  keys  of  the 
castle  and  the  tow^n." 

When  the  governor  of  Calais  related  this  to  the  people  in 
the  market-place,  there  was  great  weeping  and  distress,  in  the 
midst  of  which,  one  worthy  citizen,  named  Eustache  de  Saint 
Pierre,  rose  up  and  said,  that  if  the  six  men  required  were  not 
sacrificed,  the  whole  population  would  be,  therefore  he  offered 
himself  as  the  first.  Encouraged  by  this  bright  example,  five 
other  worthy  citizens  rose  up,  one  after  another,  and  offered 
themselves  to  save  the  rest.  The  governor,  who  was  too  badly 
wounded  to  be  able  to  walk,  mounted  a  poor  old  horse  that  had 
not  been  eaten,  and  conducted  these  good  men  to  the  gate, 
while  all  the  people  cried  and  mourned. 

Edward  received  them  wrathfully,  and  ordered  the  heads  of 
the  whole  six  to  be  struck  off.  However,  the  good  queen  fell 
upon  her  knees,  and  besought  the  king  to  give  them  up  to  her. 
The  king  replied,  "  I  wish  you  had  been  somewhere  else  ;  but 
I  cannot  refuse  you."  So  she  had  them  properly  dressed, 
made  a  feast  for  them,  and  sent  them  back  with  a  handsome 
present,  to  the  great  rejoicing  of  the  whole  camp.  I  hope  the 
people  of  Calais  loved  the  daughter  to  whom  she  gave  birth 
soon  afterw^ards,  for  her  gentle  mother's  sake. 

Now  came  that  terrible  disease,  the  plague,  into  Europe, 
hurrying  from  the  heart  of  China,  and  killed  the  wretched  peo- 
ple— especially  the  poor — in  such  enormous  numbers,  that  one 
half  of  the  inhabitants  of  England  are  related  to  have  died  of 
it.  It  killed  the  cattle  in  great  numbers  too  ;  and  so  few  work- 
ingm^n  remained  alive,  that  there  w-ere  not  enough  left  to  till 
the  ground. 

After  eight  years  of  differing  and  quarrelling,  the  Prince  of 
Wales  again  invaded  France  with  an  army  of  sixty  thousand 
men.  He  went  through  the  south  of  the  country,  burning  and 
plundering  wheresoever  he  went ;  while  his  father,  who  had 
still  the  Scottish  war  upon  his  hands,  did  the  like  in  Scotland, 
but  was  harassed  and  worried  in  his  retreat  from  that  country 
by  the  Scottish  men,  who  repaid  his  cruelties  with  interest. 

The  French  king,  Philip,  was  now  dead,  and  was  succeeded 
by  his  son  John.     The  Black  Prince,  called  by  that  name  from 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD   THE  THIRD.  149 

the  color  of  the  armor  he  wore  to  set  off  his  fair  complexion, 
continuing  to  burn  and  destroy  in  France,  roused  John  into  de- 
termined opposition  ;  and  so  cruel  had  the  Black  Prince  been 
in  his  campaign,  and  so  severely  had  the  French  peasants  suf- 
fered, that  he  could  not  find  one  who,  for  love,  or  money,  or 
the  fear  of  death,  would  tell  him  what  the  French  king  was 
doing,  or  where  he  was.  Thus  it  happened  that  he  came  upon 
the  French  king's  forces,  all  of  a  sudden,  near  the  town  of  Poic- 
tiers,  and  found  that  the  whole  neighboring  country  was  occu- 
pied by  a  vast  French  army.  "  God  help  us  !  "  said  the  Black 
Prince  ;  "  we  must  make  the  best  of  it." 

So  on  a  Sunday  morning,  the  18th  of  September,  the  prince, 
whose  army  was  now  reduced  to  ten  thousand  men  in  all,  pre- 
pared to  give  battle  to  the  French  king,  who  had  sixty  thousand 
horse  alone.  While  he  was  so  engaged,  there  came  riding  from 
the  French  camp  a  cardinal,  who  had  persuaded  John  to  let 
him  offer  terms,  and  try  to  save  the  shedding  of  Christian 
blood.  "  Save  my  honor,"  said  the  prince  to  this  good  priest, 
"  and  save  the  honor  of  my  army,  and  I  will  make  any  reason- 
able terms."  He  offered  to  give  up  all  the  towns,  castles,  and 
prisoners  he  had  taken,  and  to  swear  to  make  no  war  in  France 
for  seven  years  ;  but,  as  John  would  hear  of  nothing  but  to  sur- 
render, with  a  hundred  of  his  chief  knights,  the  treaty  was 
broken  off,  and  the  prince  said  quietly,  "  God  defend  the  right; 
we  shall  fight  to-morrow  !  " 

Therefore,  on  the  Monday  morning,  at  break  of  day,  the 
two  armies  prepared  for  battle.  The  English  were  posted  in  a 
strong  place,  which  could  only  be  approached  by  one  narrow 
lane,  skirted  by  hedges  on  both  sides.  The  French  attacked 
them  by  this  lane,  but  were  so  galled  and  slain  by  English  ar- 
rows from  behind  the  hedges,  that  they  were  forced  to  retreat. 
Then  went  six  hundred  English  bowmen  round  about,  and, 
coming  upon  the  rear  of  the  French  army,  rained  arrows  on 
them  thick  and  fast.  The  French  knights,  thrown  into  confu- 
sion, quitted  their  banners,  and  dispersed  in  all  directions. 
Said  Sir  John  Chandos  to  the  prince,  "  Ride  forward,  noble 
prince,  and  the  day  is  yours.  The  King  of  France  is  so  val- 
iant a  gentleman,  that  I  know  he  will  never  fly,  and  may  be 
taken  prisoner."  Said  the  prince  to  this,  "  Advance,  English 
banners,  in  the  name  of  God  and  St.  George  !  "  and  on  they 
pressed  until  they  came  up  with  the  French  king,  fighting 
fiercely  with  his  battle-axe,  and  when  all  his  nobles  had  for- 
saken him,  attended  faithfully  to  the  last  by  his  youngest  son 
Philip,  only  sixteen  years  of  age.     Father  and  son  fought  well  j 


I  CO  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

and  the  Mng  had  already  two  wounds  in  his  face,  and  had  been 
beaten  down,  when  he  at  last  delivered  himself  to  a  banished 
French  knight,  and  gave  him  his  right-hand  glove  in  token  that 
he  had  done  so. 

The  Black  Prince  was  generous  as  well  as  brave ;  and  he 
invited  his  royal  prisoner  to  supper  in  his  tent,  and  waited  upon 
him  at  table,  and,  when  they  afterwards  rode  into  London  in  a 
gorgeous  procession,  mounted  the  French  king  on  a  fine  cream 
colored  horse,  and  rode  at  his  side  on  a  little  pony.  This  was 
all  very  kind  ;  but  I  think  it  was,  perhaps,  a  little  theatrical 
too,  and  has  been  made  more  meritorious  than  it  deserved  to 
be,  especially  as  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  greatest  kind- 
ness to  the  King  of  France  would  have  been  not  to  have  shown 
him  to  the  people  at  all.  However,  it  must  be  said  for  these 
acts  of  politeness,  that  in  course  of  time,  they  did  much  to 
soften  the  horrors  of  war  and  the  passions  of  conquerors.  It  was 
a  long,  long  time  before  the  common  soldiers  began  to  have 
the  benefit  of  such  courtly  deeds,  but  they  did  at  last ;  and 
thus  it  is  possible  that  a  poor  soldier  who  asked  for  quarter  at 
the  battle  of  Waterloo,  or  any  other  such  great  fight,  may  have 
owed  his  life  indirectly  to  Edward  the  Black  Prince. 

At  this  time,  there  stood  in  the  strand  in  London,  a  palace 
called  the  Savoy,  which  was  given  up  to  the  captive  King  of 
France  and  his  son  for  their  residence.  As  the  king  of  Scot- 
land had  now  been  King  Edward's  captive  for  eleven  years  too, 
his  success  was  at  this  time  tolerably  complete.  The  Scottish 
business  was  settled  by  the  prisoner  being  released  under  the 
title  of  Sir  David,  King  of  Scotland,  and  by  his  engaging  to 
pay  a  large  ransom.  The  state  of  France  encouraged  England 
to  propose  harder  terms  to  that  countr}',  where  the  people  rose 
against  the  unspeakable  cruelty  and  barbarity  of  its  nobles  ; 
where  the  nobles  rose  in  turn  against  the  people  ;  where  the 
most  frightful  outrages  were  committed  on  all  sides ;  and  where 
the  insurrection  of  the  peasants,  called  the  insurrection  of  the 
Jacquerie,  from  Jacques,  a  common  Christian  name  among  the 
country  people  of  France,  awakened  terrors  and  hatreds  that 
have  scarcely  yet  passed  away.  A  treaty,  called  the  Great 
Peace,  was  at  last  signed,  under  which  King  Edward  agreed  to 
give  up  the  greater  part  of  his  conquests,  and  King  John  to 
pay,  within  six  years,  a  ransom  of  three  million  crowns  of  gold. 
He  was  so  beset  by  his  own  nobles  and  courtiers  for  having 
yielded  to  these  conditions, — though  they  could  help  him  to  no 
better, — that  he  came  back  of  his  own  will  to  his  old  palace- 
prison  of  the  Savoy,  and  there  died. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD   THE  THIRD. 


151 


There  was  a  sovereign  of  Castile  at  that  time,  called  Pedro 
the  Cruel,  who  deserved  the  name  remarkably  well,  having 
committed,  among  other  cruelties,  a  variety  of  murders.  This 
amiable  monarch,  being  driven  from  his  throne  for  his  crimes, 
went  to  the  province  of  Bordeaux,  where  the  Black  Prince — 
now  married  to  his  cousin  Joan,  a  pretty  widow, — was  residing, 
and  besought  his  help.  The  prince,  who  took  to  him  much 
more  kindly  than  a  prince  of  such  fame  ought  to  ha\e  taken  to 
such  a  rufhan,  readily  listened  to  his  fair  promises,  and,  agree- 
ing to  help  him,  sent  secret  orders  to  some  troublesome  dis- 
banded soldiers  of  his  and  his  father's  who  called  themselves 
the  Free  Companions,  and  who  had  been  a  pest  to  the  French 
people  for  some  time,  to  aid  this  Pedro.  Ilie  prince  himself, 
going  into  Spain  to  head  the  army  of  relief,  soon  set  Pedro  on 
his  throne  again, — where  he  no  sooner  found  himself,  than,  of 
course,  he  behaved  like  the  villain  he  was,  broke  his  word  v/ith- 
out  the  least  shame,  and  abandoned  all  the  promises  he  had 
made  to  the  Black  Prince. 

Now  it  had  cost  the  prince  a  good  deal  of  money  to  pay  sol- 
diers to  support  this  murderous  king ;  and  finding  himself, 
when  he  came  back  disgusted  to  Bordeaux,  not  only  in  bad 
health,  but  deeply  in  debt,  he  began  to  tax  his  French  sub- 
jects to  pay  his  creditors.  They  appealed  to  the  French  king, 
Charles  ;  war  again  broke  out ;  and  the  French  town  of  Limo- 
ges, which  the  prince  had  greatly  benefited,  went  over  to  the 
French  king.  Upon  this  he  ravaged  the  province  of  which  it 
was  the  capital  ;  burnt  and  plundered  and  killed  in  the  old  sick- 
ening way  ;  and  refused  mercy  to  the  prisoners,  men,  women, 
and  children,  taken  in  the  offending  town,  though  he  was  so  ill 
and  so  much  in  need  of  pity  himself  from  Heaven  that  he  was 
carried  in  a  litter.  He  lived  to  come  home,  and  make  himself 
popular  with  the  people  and  parliament,  and  he  died  on  Trinity 
Sunda}^  the  8th  of  June,  1376,  at  forty-six  years  old. 

The  whole  nation  mourned  for  him  as  one  of  the  most  re- 
nowned and  beloved  princes  it  had  ever  had  ;  and  he  was 
buried  with  great  lamentations  in  Canterbury  Cathedral.  Near 
to  the  tomb  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  his  monument,  with  his 
figure  carved  in  stone,  and  represented  in  the  old  black  armor, 
lying  on  its  back,  may  be  seen  at  this  day,  with  an  ancient  coat 
of  mail,  a  helmet,  and  a  pair  of  gauntlets  hanging  from  a  beam 
above  it,  which  most  people  like  to  believe  were  once  worn  by 
the  Black  Prince. 

King  Edward  did  not  outlive  his  renowned  son  long.  He 
was  old ;  and  one  Alice  Perrers,  a  beautiful  lady,  had  contrived 


152 


A  CHILjys  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


to  make  him  so  fond  of  her  in  his  old  age,  that  he  could  refuse 
her  nothing,  and  made  himself  ridiculous.  She  little  deserved 
his  love,  or — what  I  dare  say  she  valued  a  great  deal  more — the 
jewels  of  the  late  queen,  which  he  gave  her  among  other  rich 
presents.  She  took  the  very  ring  from  his  finger  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  day  when  he  died,  and  left  him  to  be  pillaged  by  his 
faithless  servants.  Only  one  good  priest  was  good  to  him,  and 
attended  him  to  the  last. 

Besides  being  famous  for  the  great  victories  I  have  related, 
the  reign  of  King  Edward  the  Third  was  rendered  memorable 
in  better  ways,  by  the  growth  of  architecture  and  the  erection 
of  Windsor  Castle.  In  better  ways  still,  by  the  rising  up  of 
Wyckliffe,  originally  a  poor  parish  priest,  who  devoted  himself 
to  exposing,  with  wonderful  power  and  success,  the  ambition 
and  corruption  of  the  pope,  and  of  the  whole  church  of  which 
he  was  the  head. 

Some  of  those  Flemings  w^ere  induced  to  come  to  England 
in  this  reign,  too,  and  to  settle  in  Norfolk,  where  they  made 
better  woollen  cloths  than  the  English  had  ever  had  before. 
The  order  of  the  Garter  (a  very  fine  thing  in  its  way,  but  hardly 
so  important  as  good  clothes  for  the  nation)  also  dates  from 
this  period.  The  king  is  said  to  have  picked  up  a  lady's  garter 
at  a  ball,  and  to  have  said,  Ifoni  soit  qui  mal  y  peiise  ;  in  Eng- 
lish, "  Evil  be  to  him  who  evil  thinks  of  it."  The  courtiers 
were  usually  glad  to  imitate  what  the  king  said  or  did,  and 
hence  from  a  slight  incident  the  Order  of  the  Garter  was  insti- 
tuted and  became  a  great  dignity.     So  the  story  goes. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

ENGLAND    UNDER    RICHARD   THE    SECOND. 

Richard,  son  of  the  Black  Prince,  a  boy  eleven  years  of 
age,  succeeded  to  the  crown,  under  the  title  of  King  Richard 
the  Second.  The  whole  English  nation  were  ready  to  admire 
him  for  the  sake  of  his  brave  father.  As  to  the  lords  and  ladies 
about  the  court,  they  declared  him  to  be  the  most  beautiful,  the 
wisest,  and  the  best,  even  of  princes,  whom  the  lords  and  ladies 
about  the  court  generally  declare  to  be  the  most  beautiful,  the 
wisest^   and  best  of  mankind.     To  flatter  a  poor  boy  in  this 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  SECOND. 


153 


base  manner  was  not  a  very  likely  way  to  develop  whatever 
good  was  in  him,  and  it  brought  him  to  anything  but  a  good  or 
happy  end. 

The  Duke  of  Lancaster,  the  young  king's  uncle,  commonly 
called  John  of  Gaunt,  from  having  been  born  at  Ghent,  which 
the  common  people  so  pronounced, — was  supposed  to  have 
some  thoughts  of  the  throne  himself ;  but  as  he  was  not  popu- 
lar, and  the  memory  of  the  Black  Prince  was,  he  submitted  to 
his  nephew. 

The  war  with  France  being  still  unsettled,  the  government 
of  England  wanted  money  to  provide  for  the  expenses  that 
might  arise  out  of  it ;  accordingly  a  certain  tax,  called  the  poll- 
tax,  which  had  originated  in  the  last  reign,  was  ordered  to  be 
levied  on  the  people.  This  was  a  tax  on  every  person  in  the 
kingdom,  male  and  female,  above  the  age  of  fourteen,  of  three 
groats  (or  three  fourpenny  pieces)  a  year ;  clerg}'men  were 
charged  more,  and  only  beggars  were  exempt. 

I  have  no  need  to  repeat  that  the  common  people  of  Eng- 
land had  long  been  suffering  under  great  oppression.  They 
were  still  the  mere  slaves  of  the  lords  of  the  land  on  which  they 
lived,  and  were  on  most  occasions  harshly  and  unjustly  treated. 
But  they  had  begun  by  this  time  to  think  very  seriously  of  not 
bearing  quite  so  much,  and  probably  were  emboldened  by  that 
French  insurrection  I  mentioned  in  the  last  chapter. 

The  people  of  Essex  rose  against  the  poll-tax,  and,  being 
severely  handled  by  the  government  officers,  killed  some  of 
th,em.  At  this  very  time  some  one  of  the  tax-collectors  going  his 
rounds  from  house  to  house,  at  Dartford,  in  Kent,  came  to  the 
cottage  o\.  one  Wat,  a  tiler  by  trade,  and  claimed  the  tax  upon 
his  daughter.  Her  mother,  who  was  at  home,  declared  that 
she  was  under  the  age  of  fourteen,  upon  that,  the  collector  (as 
other  collectors  had  already  done  in  different  parts  of  England) 
behaved  in  a  savage  way,  and  brutally  insulted  Wat  Tyler's 
daughter.  The  daughter  screamed,  the  mother  screamed. 
Wat,  the  Tiler,  who  was  at  work  not  far  off,  ran  to  the  spot,  and 
did  what  any  honest  father  under  such  provocation  might  have 
done, — struck  the  collector  dead  at  a  blow. 

Instantly  the  people  of  that  town  uprose  as  one  man.  They 
made  Wat  Tyler  their  leader ;  they  joined  with  the  people  of 
Essex,  who  were  in  arms  under  a  priest  called  Jack  Straw  ; 
they  took  out  of  prison  another  priest  named  John  Ball  ;.  and, 
gathering  in  numbers  as  they  went  along,  advanced  in  a  great 
confused  army  of  poor  men,  to  Blackheath.  It  is  said  that  they 
wanted  to  abolish  all  property,  and  to  declare  all  men  equal.    1 


T54 


A  CHILD'S  lUSTOR  Y  OF  ENGLAND. 


do  not  think  this  very  likely ;  because  tliey  stopped  the  travel- 
lers on  the  road  and  made  them  swear  to  be  true  to  King 
Richard  and  the  people.  Nor  were  they  at  all  disposed  to  in- 
jure those  who  had  done  them  no  harm,  merely  because  they 
were  of  high  station  ;  for  the  king's  mother,  who  had  to  pass 
through  their  camp  at  Blackheath,  on  hervvay  to  her  young  son. 
lying  for  safety  in  the  Tower  of  London,  had  merely  to  kiss  a 
few  dirty-faced,  rougb.-bearded  men  who  were  noisily  fond  of 
royalty,  and  so  got  away  in  perfect  safety.  Next  day  the  whole 
mass  marched  on  to  London  Bridge. 

There  was  a  drawbridge  in  the  middle,  which  William  Wal- 
worth, the  mayor,  caused  to  be  raised  to  prevent  their  coming 
into  the  city  ;  but  they  soon  terrified  the  citizens  into  lowering 
it  again,  and  spread  themselves  with  great  uproar,  over  the 
streets.  They  broke  open  the  prisons  ;  they  burned  the  papers 
in  Lambeth  Palace ;  they  destroyed  the  Duke  of  Lancaster's 
palace,  the  Savoy,  in  the  Strand,  said  to  be  the  most  beautiful 
and  splendid  in  England  ;  they  set  fire  to  the  books  and  docu- 
ments in  the  Temple,  and  made  a  great  riot.  Many  of  these 
outrages  were  committed  in  drunkenness,  since  those  citizens, 
who  had  v/ell-filled  cellars,  were  only  too  glad  to  throw  them 
open  to  save  the  rest  of  their  property,  but  even  the  drunken 
rioters  were  very  careful  to  steal  nothing.  They  were  so  angrj^ 
w^ith  one  man,  who  was  seen  to  take  a  silver  cup  at  the  Savoy 
palace,  and  put  it  in  his  breast,  that  they  drowned  him  in  the 
river,  cup  and  all. 

The  young  king  had  been  taken  out  to  treat  with  them  be- 
fore they  committed  these  excesses,  but  he  and  the  people 
about  him  were  so  frightened  by  the  riotous  shouts,  that  they 
got  back  to  the  Tower  in  the  best  \vay  they  could.  This  made 
the  insurgents  bolder;  so  they  went  on  rioting  away,  striking 
off  the  heads  of  those  who  did  not,  at  a  moment's  notice,  de- 
clare for  King  Richard  and  the  people,  and  killing  as  many  of 
the  unpopular  persons  whom  they  supposed  to  be  their  enemies, 
as  they  could  by  any  means  lay  hold  of.  In  this  manner  they 
passed  one  very  violent  day,  and  then  proclamation  was  made 
that  the  king  would  meet  them  at  Mile-End,  and  grant  their  rC' 
quest. 

The  rioters  went  to  Mile-End,  to  the  number  of  sixty  thou- 
sand, and  the  king  met  them  there ;  and  to  the  king  the  rioters 
peaceably  proposed  four  conditions.  First,  that  neither  they, 
nor  their  children,  nor  any  coming  after  them,  should  be  made 
slaves  any  more.  Secondly,  that  the  rent  of  land  should  be 
fixed  at  a  certain  price  in  money,  instead  of  being  paid  in  ser- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD   THE  SECOND.         155 

vice.  Thirdly,  that  they  sliould  have  Hberty  to  buy  and  sell  in 
all  markets  and  public  places,  like  other  free  men.  Fourthly, 
that  they  should  be  pardoned  for  past  offences.  Heaven  knows 
there  was  nothing  very  unreasonable  in  these  proposals  !  The 
young  king  deceitfully  pretended  to  think  so,  and  kept  thirty 
clerks  up  all  night  writing  out  a  charter  accordingly. 

Now  Wat  Tvler  himself  wanted  more  tliPiU  this.  He  wanted 
the  entire  abolition  of  the  forest  laws.  He  was  not  at  Mile-End 
with  the  rest  ;  but,  while  that  meeting  was  being  held,  broke 
into  the  Tower  of  London,  and  slev/  the  archbishop  and  the 
treasurer,  for  whose  heads  the  people  had  cried  out  loudly  the 
day  before.  He  and  his  men  even  thrusc  their  swords  into  the 
bed  of  the  Princess  of  Wales,  while  the  Princess  was  in  it,  to 
make  certain  that  none  of   their  enemies  were  concealed  there. 

So  Wat  and  his  men  still  continued  armed,  and  rode  about 
the  city.  Next  morning,  the  king  with  a  small  train  of  some 
sixty  gentlemen — among  whom  was  Walworth,  the  mayor — rode 
into  Smithfield,  and  saw  Wat  and  his  people  at  a  little  distance. 
Says  Wat  to  his  men,  "  There  is  the  king.  I  will  go  speak  with 
him,  and  tell  him  what  v.e  want.'' 

Straightway,  Wat  rode  up  to  him,  and  began  to  talk. 
"King,"  says  Wat,  '"dost  thou  see  all  my  men  there?'* 

"  Ah !  "  says  the  king.     ''  Why  ?  " 

"Because,"  says  Wat,  "they  are  all  at  my  command,  and 
have  sworn  to  do  whatever  I  bid  them." 

Some  declared  afterwards,  that,  as  Wat  said  this,  he  laid  his 
hand  on  the  kin-^'s  bridle.  Others  declared  that  he  was  seen  to 
play  with  his  own  dagger.  I  think,  myself,  that  he  just  spoke 
to  the  kins:  lil^-C  a  rou-ih,  ancrrv  man,  as  he  was,  and  did  nothins: 
more.  At  any  rate,  he  was  expecting  no  attack,  and  preparing 
for  no  resistance,  when  Walworth,  the  mayor,  did  the  not  very 
valiant  deed  of  drawing  a  short  sword,  and  stabbing  him  m  the 
throat.  He  dropped  from  his  horse,  and  one  of  the  king's 
people  speedily  finished  him.  So  fell  Wat  Tyler.  Fawners  and 
flatterers  made  a  mighty  triumph  of  it,  and  set  up  a  cry  which 
will  occasionally  find  an  echo  to  this  day.  But  Wat  was  a  hard' 
working  man,  who  had  suffered  much,  and  had  been  loully  out- 
raged ;  and  it  is  probable  that  he  was  a  man  of  much  higher 
nature  and  a  much  braver  spirit  than  any  of  the  parasites  who 
exulted  then,  or  have  exulted  since,  over  his  defeat. 

Seeing  Wat  down,  his  men  immediately  bent  their  bows  to 
avenge  his  fall.  If  the  young  king  had  not  had  presence  of 
mind  at  that  dangerous  moment,  both  he  and  the  mayor  to  boot 
might  have  followed  Tyler  pretty  fast.     But  the  king,  riding  up 


156  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

to  the  crowd,  cried  out  that  Tyler  was  a  traitor,  and  that  he  would 
be  their  leader.  They  were  so  taken  by  surprise,  that  they  set 
up  a  great  shouting,  and  followed  the  boy  until  he  was  met  at 
Islington  by  a  large  body  of  soldiers. 

The  end  of  this  rising  was  the  then  usual  end.  As  soon  as 
the  king  found  himself  safe,  he  unsaid  all  he  had  said,  and  un- 
did all  he  had  done  ;  some  fifteen  hundred  of  the  rioters  were 
tried  (mostly  in  Essex)  with  great  rigor,  and  executed  with  great 
cruelty.  Many  of  them  were  hanged  on  gibbets,  and  left  there 
as  a  terror  to  the  country  people  ;  and,  because  their  miserable 
friends  took  some  of  the  bodies  down  to  bury,  the  king  ordered 
the  rest  to  be  chained  up, — which  was  the  beginning  of  the  bar- 
barous custom  of  hanging  in  chains.  The  king's  falsehood  in 
this  business  makes  such  a  pitiful  figure,  that  I  think  Wat  Tyler 
appears  in  history  as  beyond  comparison  the  truer  and  more 
respectable  man  of  the  two. 

Richard  was  now  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  married  Anne  of 
Bohemia,  an  excellent  princess,  who  was  called  "  the  good  Queen 
Anne  "  She  deserved  a  better  husband  ;  for  the  king  had  been 
fawned  and  flattered  into  a  treacherous,  wasteful,  dissolute,  bad 
young  man. 

There  were  two  popes  at  this  time  (as  if  one  were  not  enough !) 
and  their  quarrels  involved  Europe  in  a  great  deal  of  trouble. 
Scotland  was  still  troublesome  too ;  and  at  home  there  was 
much  jealousy  and  distrust,  and  plotting  and  counter-plotting, 
because  the  king  feared  the  ambition  of  his  relations,  and  par- 
ticularly of  his  uncle,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  ;  and  the  duke  had 
his  party  against  the  king,  and  the  king  had  his  party  against 
the  duke.  Nor  were  these  home  troubles  lessened  when  the 
duke  went  to  Castile  to  urge  his  claim  to  the  crown  of  that 
kingdom ;  for  then  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  another  of  Richard's 
uncles,  opposed  him,  and  influenced  the  Parliament  to  demand 
the  dismissal  of  the  king's  favorite  ministers.  The  king  said, 
in  reply,  that  he  would  not  for  such  men  dismiss  the  meanest 
servant  in  his  kitchen.  But  it  had  begun  to  signify  little  what 
a  king  said  when  a  parliament  was  determined  ;  so  Richard  was 
at  last  obliged  to  give  way,  and  to  agree  to  another  government 
of  the  kingdom,  under  a  commission  of  fourteen  nobles,  for  a 
year.  His  uncle  of  Gloucester  was  at  the  head  of  this  com- 
mission, and,  in  fact,  appointed  everybody  composing  it. 

Having  done  all  this,  the  king  declared,  as  soon  as  he  saw 
an  opportunity,  that  he  had  never  meant  to  do  it,  and  that  it  was 
all  illegal  ;  and  he  got  the  judges  secretly  to  sign  a  declaration 
to  that  effect.     The  secret  oozed  out  directly,  and  was  carried 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD   THE  SECOND. 


157 


to  the  Duke  of  Gloucester.  The  Duke  of  Gloucester,  at  the 
head  of  forty  thousand  men,  met  the  king  on  his  entering  into 
London  to  enforce  his  authority  ;  the  king  was  helpless  against 
him  ;  his  favorites  and  ministers  were  impeached  and  were 
mercilessly  executed.  Amon*!  them  were  two  men  whom  the 
people  regarded  with  very  different  feelings,  —  one,  Robert 
Tresilian,  Chief  Justice  who  was  hated  for  having  made  what 
was  called  "the  bloody  circuit"  to  try  the  rioters  ;  the  other, 
Sir  Simon  Burley,  an  honorable  knight,  who  had  been  the  dear 
friend  of  the  Black  Prince,  and  the  governor  and  guardian  of 
the  king.  For  this  gentleman's  life  the  good  queen  even  begged 
of  Gloucester  on  her  knees  \  but  Gloucester  (with  or  without 
reason)  feared  and  hated  him,  and  replied,  that  if  she  valued  her 
husband's  crown,  she  had  better  beg  no  more.  All  this  was 
done  under  what  was  called  by  some  the  wonderful — and  by 
others,  with  better  reason,  the  merciless — parliament. 

But  Gloucester's  power  was  not  to  last  forever.  He  held  it 
for  only  a  year  longer  ;  in  which  year  the  famous  battle  of 
Otterbourne,  sung  in  the  old  ballad  of  Chevy  Chase,  v.as  fought. 
When  the  year  was  out,  the  king,  turning  suddenly  to  Glouces- 
ter, in  the  midst  of  a  great  council,  said,  "  Uncle,  how  old  am 
I  ?  "  "  Your  Highness,"  returned  the  duke,  *'  is  in  your  twenty- 
second  year."  "  Am  I  so  much  ?  "  said  the  king  ;  "  then  I  will 
manage  my  own  affairs  !  I  am  much  obliged  to  you,  my  good 
lords,  for  your  past  services,  but  I  need  them  no  m.ore."  He 
followed  this  up  by  appointing  a  new  chancellor  and  a  new 
treasurer,  and  announced  to  the  people  that  he  had  resumed  the 
government.  He  held  it  for  eight  years  without  opposition. 
Through  all  that  time,  he  kept  his  determination  to  revenge  him- 
self some  day  upon  his  uncle  Gloucester  in  his  own  breast. 

At  last  the  good  queen  died  ;  and  then  the  king,  desiring  to 
take  a  second  wife,  proposed  to  his  council  that  he  should  marry 
Isabella  of  France,  the  daughter  of  Charles  the  Sixth,  who,  the 
French  courtiers  said  (as  the  English  courtiers  had  said  of 
Richard)  was  a  marvel  of  beauty  and  wit,  and  quite  a  phe- 
nomenon,— of  seven  years  old.  The  council  was  divided  about 
this  marriage,  but  it  took  place.  It  secured  peace  between 
England  and  France  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  but  it  was 
strongly  opposed  to  the  prejudices  of  the  English  people.  The 
Duke  of  Gloucester,  who  was  anxious  to  take  the  occasion  of 
making  himself  popular,  declaimed  against  it  loudly;  and  this 
at  length  decided  the  king  to  execute  the  vengeance  he  had  been 
nursing  so  long. 

He  went  with  a  gay  company  to  the  Duke  of  Gloucester's 


1^8  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

house,  Pleshey  Castle,  in  Essex,  where  the  duke,  suspecting 
nothing,  came  out  into  the  court-yard  to  receive  his  royal  visitor. 
While  the  king  conversed  in  a  friendly  manner  with  the  duch- 
ess, the  duke  was  quietly  seized,  hurried  away,  shipped  for 
Calais,  and  lodged  in  the  castle  there.  His  friends,  the  Earls 
of  Arundel  and  Warwick,  were  taken  in  the  same  treacherous 
manner,  and  confined  to  their  castles.  A  few  days  after,  at 
Nottingham,  they  were  impeached  for  high  treason.  The  Earl 
of  Arundel  was  condemned  and  beheaded,  and  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick was  banished.  Then  a  writ  was  sent  by  a  messenger  to 
the  Governor  of  Calais,  requiring  him  to  send  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester  over  to  be  tried.  In  three  days,  he  returned  an  an- 
swer that  he  could  not  do  that,  because  the  Duke  of  Gloucester 
had  died  in  prison.  The  duke  was  declared  a  traitor,  his  prop- 
erty was  confiscated  to  the  king,  a  real  or  pretended  confession 
he  had  made  in  prison  to  one  of  the  justices  of  the  common 
pleas  was  produced  against  him,  and  there  was  an  end  of  the 
matter.  How  the  unfortunate  duke  died  very  few  cared  to 
know.  Whether  he  really  died  naturally,  whether  he  killed  him- 
self, whether  by  the  kmg's  order  he  was  strangled,  or  smothered 
between  two  beds  (as  a  servmg-man  of  the  governor's,  named 
Hall,  did  afterwards  declare),  cannot  be  discovered.  There  is 
not  much  doubt  that  he  was  killed,  somehow  or  other,  by  his 
nephew's  orders.  Among  the  most  active  nobles  in  these  pro- 
ceedings were  the  king's  cousin,  Henry  Bolingbroke,  whom  the 
king  had  made  Duke  of  Hereford  to  smooth  down  the  old 
family  quarrels,  and  some  others  ;  who  had  in  the  family  plot- 
ting-times  done  just  such  acts  themselves  as  they  now  con- 
demned in  the  duke.  They  seem  to  have  been  a  corrupt  set  of 
men  ;  but  such  men  were  easily  found  about  the  court  in  such 
days. 

The  people  murmured  at  all  this,  and  were  still  very  sore 
about  the  French  marriage.  The  nobles  saw  how  little  the  king 
cared  for  law,  and  how  crafty  he  was,  and  began  to  be  some- 
what afraid  of  themselves.  The  king's  life  was  a  life  of  con- 
tinued feasting  and  excess  ;  his  retinue,  down  to  the  meanest 
servants,  were  dressed  in  the  most  costly  manner,  and  caroused 
at  his  tables,  it  is  related,  to  the  number  of  ten  thousand  every 
day.  He  himself,  surrounded  by  a  body  of  ten  thousand  arch- 
ers, and  enriched  by  a  duty  on  wool,  which  the  Commons  had 
granted  him  for  life,  saw  no  danger  of  ever  being  otherwise  than 
powerful  and  absolute,  and  was  as  fierce  and  haughty  as  a  king 
could  be. 

He  had  two  of  his  old  enemies  left,  in  the  persons  of  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD   THE  SECOND. 


159 


Dukes  of  Hereford  and  Norfolk.  Sparing  these  no  more  than 
the  others,  he  tampered  with  the  Duke  of  Hereford  until  he  got 
him  to  declare,  belore  the  Council,  that  the  Duke  of  Norfolk 
had  lately  held  some  treasonable  talk  with  him  as  he  was  riding 
near  Brentford  ;  and  that  he  had  told  him,  among  other  things, 
that  he  could  not  believe  the  king's  oath, — wliich  nobody  could, 
I  should  think.  For  this  treachery  he  obtained  a  pardon,  and  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk  was  summoned  to  appear  and  defend  himself. 
As  he  denied  the  charge,  and  said  his  accuser  was  a  liar  and  a 
traitor,  both  noblemen,  according  to  the  manner  ol  those  times 
were  held  in  custody,  and  the  truth  was  ordered  to  be  decided 
by  wager  of  battle  at  Coventry  This  wager  of  battle  meant  that 
whosoever  v;on  the  combat  was  to  be  considered  in  the  right  . 
which  nonsense  meant,  rn  effect,  that  no  strong  man  could  ever 
be  wrong.  A  great  holiday  was  made,  a  great  crowd  assem- 
bled, with  much  parade  and  show  ,  and  the  two  combatants 
were  about  to  rush  at  each  other  with  their  lances,  when  the 
king,  sitting  in  a  pavilion  to  see  fair,  threw  down  the  truncheon 
he  carried  in  his  hand,  and  forbade  the  battle.  The  Duke  of 
Hereford  was  to  be  banished  for  ten  years,  and  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  was  to  be  banished  tor  life.  So  said  the  king  The 
Duke  of  Hereford  went  to  France,  and  went  no  farther  The 
Duke  of  Norfolk  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land,  and 
afterwards  died  at  Venice  of  a  broken  heart. 

Faster  and  fiercer,  after  this,  the  king  went  on  in  his  career. 
The  Duke  of  Lancaster,  who  was  the  father  of  the  Duke  of 
Hereford,  died  soon  after  the  departure  of  his  son  ,  and  the 
king,  although  he  had  solemnly  granted  to  that  son  leave  to 
inherit  his  father's  property,  if  it  should  come  to  him  during 
his  banishment,  immediately  seized  it  all,  like  a  robber.  The 
judges  were  so  afraid  of  him  that  they  disgraced  themselves  by 
declaring  this  theft  to  be  just  and  lawful.  His  avarice  knew 
no  bounds.  He  outlawed  seventeen  counties  at  once,  on  a 
frivolous  pretence,  merely  to  raise  money  by  way  of  fines  for 
misconduct.  In  short,  he  did  as  many  dishonest  things  as  he 
could ;  and  cared  so  little  for  the  discontent  of  his  subjects, — 
though  even  the  spaniel  favorites  began  to  whisper  to  him  that 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  discontent  afloat, — that  he  took  that 
time,  of  all  others,  for  leaving  England,  and  making  an  expedi- 
tion against  the  Irish. 

He  was  scarcely  gone,  leaving  the  Duke  of  York  regent  in 
his  absence,  when  his  cousin,  Henry  of  Hereford,  came  over 
from  France  to  claim  the  rights  of  which  he  had  been  so  mon- 
strously deprived.      He  was  immediately  joined  by  the  two 


i6o  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

great  earls  of  Northumberland  and  Westmoreland  ;  and  his 
uncle,  the  regent,  finding  the  king's  cause  unpopular^  and  the 
disinclination  of  the  army  to  act  against  Henry  very  strong, 
withdrew  the  royal  forces  towards  Bristol.  Henry,  at  the  head 
o[  an  army,  came  from  Yorkshire  (where  he  had  landed)  to 
London,  and  followed  him.  They  joined  their  forces — how  they 
brought  that  about  is  not  distinctly  understood — and  proceeded 
to  Bristol  Castle,  whither  three  noblemen  had  taken  tha  young 
queen.  The  castle  surrendering,  they  presently  put  those  three 
noblemen  to  death.  The  regent  then  remained  there,  and  Henry 
went  on  to  Chester. 

All  this  time  the  boisterous  weather  had  prevented  the  king 
from  receiving  intelligence  of  what  had  occurred  At  length  it 
was  conveyed  to  him  in  Ireland  ,  and  he  sent  over  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury,  who,  landing  at  Conway,  rallied  the  Welshmen,  and 
waited  for  the  king  a  whole  fortnight ;  at  the  end  of  that  time 
the  Welshmen,  who  were  perhaps  not  very  warm  for  him  in  the 
beginning,  quite  cooled  down,  and  went  home.  When  the  king 
did  land  on  the  coast  at  last,  he  cam.e  with  a  pretty  good  power  ; 
but  his  men  cared  nothing  for  him,  and  quickly  deserted.  Sup- 
posing the  Welshmen  to  be  still  at  Conway,  he  disguised  him- 
self as  a  priest,  and  made  lor  that  place  in  company  with  his 
two  brothers  and  some  few  of  their  adherents.  But  there  were 
no  Welshmen  left, — only  Salisbury  and  a  hundred  soldiers.  In 
this  distress,  the  king's  tw'o  brothers,  Exeter  and  Surrey,  offered 
to  go  to  Henry  to  learn  what  his  intentions  were.  Surrey,  who 
was  true  to  Richard,  was  put  into  prison.  Exeter,  who  was 
false,  took  the  royal  badge,  which  was  a  hart,  off  his  shield,  and 
assumed  the  rose,  the  badge  of  Henr)-.  After  this  it  was  pretty 
plain  to  the  king  what  Henry's  intentions  were,  without  sending 
any  more  messengers  to  ask 

The  fallen  king,  thus  deserted,  hemmed  in  on  all  sides  and 
pressed  with  hunger,  rode  here  and  rode  there,  and  went  to 
this  castle  and  went  to  that  castle,  endeavoring  to  obtain  some 
provisions,  but  could  find  none.  He  rode  wretchedly  back  to 
Conway,  and  there  surrendered  himself  to  the  Earl  of  North- 
umberland, who  came  from  Henry,  in  reality  to  take  him 
prisoner,  but  in  appearance  to  offer  terms,  and  whose  men  were 
hidden  not  far  off.  By  this  earl  he  was  conducted  to  the 
Castle  of  Flint,  where  his  cousin  Henry  met  him,  and  dropped 
on  his  knee  as  if  he  were  still  respectful  to  his  sovereign. 

"  Fair  cousin  of  Lancaster,"  said  the  king,  "you  are  very 
welcome"  (very  welcome,  no  doubt;  but  he  would  have  been 
more  so  in  chains,  or  without  a  head). 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD   THE  SECOND.         i6i 

"  My  lord,"  replied  Henry,  "  I  am  come  a  little  before  m^ 
time ;  but,  with  your  good  pleasure,  I  will  show  you  the  reason. 
Your  people  complain,  with  some  bitterness,  that  you  have 
ruled  them  rigorously  for  two-and-twenty  years.  Now,  if  it 
pleases  God,  I  will  help  you  to  govern  them  better  in  future." 

"  Fair  cousin,"  replied  the  abject  king,  "  since  it  pleaseth 
you,  it  pleaseth  me  mightily." 

After  this,  the  trumpet  sounded,  and  the  king  was  stuck  on 
d  wretched  horse,  and  carried  prisoner  to  Chester,  where  he 
was  made  to  issue  a  proclamation  calling  a  parliament.  From 
Chester  he  was  taken  on  towards  London.  At  Lichfield  he 
tried  to  escape  by  getting  out  of  a  window,  and  letting  himself 
down  into  a  garden  ;  it  was  all  in  vain,  however ;  and  he  was 
carried  on  and  shut  up  in  the  Tower,  where  no  one  pitied  him, 
and  where  the  whole  people,  whose  patience  he  had  quite  tired 
out,  reproached  him  without  mercy.  Before  he  got  there,  it  is 
related  that  his  very  dog  left  him,  and  departed  from  his  side 
to  lick  the  hand  of  Henry. 

The  day  before  the  Parliament  met,  a  deputation  went  to 
this  wretched  king,  and  told  him  that  he  had  promised  the 
Earl  of  Northumberland  at  Conway  Castle  to  resign  the  crown. 
He  said  he  was  quite  ready  to  do  it,  and  signed  a  paper  in 
which  he  renounced  his  authority,  and  absolved  his  people 
from  their  allegiance  to  him.  He  had  so  little  spirit  left,  that 
he  gave  his  royal  ring  to  his  triumphant  cousin  Henry  with  his 
own  hand,  and  said,  that  if  he  could  have  had  leave  to  appoint 
a  successor,  that  same  Henry  was  the  man  of  all  others  whom 
he  would  have  named.  Next  day  the  Parliament  assembled 
m  Westminster  Hall,  where  Henry  sat  at  the  side  of  the  throne, 
which  was  empty,  and  covered  with  a  cloth  of  gold.  The  paper 
just  signed  by  the  king  was  read  to  the  multitude  amid  shouts 
of  joy,  which  were  echoed  through  all  the  streets;  when  some 
of  the  noise  had  died  away,  the  king  was  formally  deposed. 
Then  Henry  arose,  and,  making  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  his 
forehead  and  breast,  challenged  the  realm  of  England  as  his 
right  ;  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  and  York  seated  him  on 
the  throne. 

The  multitude  shouted  again,  and  the  shouts  re-echoed 
throughout  all  the  streets.  No  one  remembered  now  that 
Richard  the  Second  had  ever  been  the  most  beautiful,  the 
wisest,  and  the  best  of  princes  ;  and  he  now  matle  living  (to 
my  thinking)  a  far  more  sorry  spectacle  in  the  Tower  of  Lon- 
don, than  Wat  Tyler  had  made,  lying  dead  among  the  hoofs  of 
the  royal  horses  in  Smithheld. 


,62  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

The  poll-tax  died  with  Wat.  The  smiths  to  the  king  and 
royal  family  could  make  no  chains  in  which  the  king  couM 
hang  the  people's  recollection  of  him  ;  so  the  poll-tax  was  nevei 
collected. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

ENGLAND   UNDER    HENRY   THE     FOURTH,    CALLED    BOLINGBROKE, 

During  the  last  reign,  the  preaching  of  Wyckliffe  against 
the  pride  and  cunning  of  the  pope  and  all  his  men,  had  made 
a  great  noise  in  England.  Whether  the  new  king  wished  to  be 
in  favor  with  the  priests,  or  whether  he  hoped,  by  pretending 
to  be  very  religious,  to  cheat  Heaven  itself  into  the  belief  that 
he  was  not  a  usurper,  I  don't  know.  Both  suppositions  are 
likely  enough.  It  is  certain  that  he  began  his  reign  by  making 
a  strong  show  against  the  followers  of  Wyckliffe,  who  were 
called  Lollards,  or  heretics,  —  although  his  father,  John  of 
Gaunt,  had  been  of  that  way  of  thinking,  as  he  himself  had 
been  more  than  suspected  of  being.  It  is  no  less  certain  that 
he  first  established  in  England  the  detestable  and  atrocious 
custom,  brought  from  abroad,  of  burning  those  people  as  a 
punishment  for  their  opinions.  It  was  the  importation  into 
England  of  one  of  the  practices  of  what  was  called  the  Holy 
Inquisition  ;  which  was  the  most  z/zzholy  and  the  most  infamous 
tribunal  that  ever  disgraced  mankind,  and  made  men  more  like 
demons  than  followers  of  our  Saviour. 

No  real  right  to  the  crown,  as  you  know,  was  in  this  king. 
Edward  Mortimer,  the  young  Earl  of  March, — who  was  only 
eight  or  nine  years  old,  and  who  was  descended  from  the  Duke 
of  Clarence,  the  elder  brother  of  Henry's  father, — was  by  suc- 
cession the  real  heir  to  the  throne.  However,  the  king  got  his 
son  declared  Prince  of  Wales  ;  and,  obtaining  possession  of  the 
young  Earl  of  March  and  his  little  brother,  kept  them  in  con- 
finement (but  not  severely)  in  Windsor  Castle.  He  then  re- 
quired the  Parliament  to  decide  what  was  to  be  done  with  the 
deposed  king,  who  was  quiet  enough,  and  who  only  said  that 
he  hoped  his  cousin  Henry  would  be  "  a  good  lord  "  to  him. 
The  Parliament  replied  that  they  would  recommend  his  being 
kept  in  some  secret  place,  where  the  people  could  not  resort, 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  163 

and  where  his  friends  could  be  admitted  to  see  him.  Henry 
accordingly  passed  this  sentence  upon  him  ;  and  it  now  began 
to  be  pretty  clear  to  the  nation  that  Richard  the  Second  would 
not  live  very  long. 

It  was  a  noisy  parliament,  as  it  was  an  unprincipled  one  ; 
and  the  lords  quarrelled  so  violently  among  themselves  as  to 
which  of  them  had  been  loyal  and  which  disloyal,  and  which 
consistent  and  which  inconsistent,  that  forty  gauntlets  are  said 
to  have  been  thrown  upon  the  floor  at  one  time  as  challenges 
to  as  many  battles  ;  the  truth  being,  that  they  were  all  false 
and  base  together,  and  had  been  at  one  time  with  the  old  king, 
and  at  another  time  with  the  new  one,  and  seldom  true  for  any 
length  of  time  to  any  one.  They  soon  began  to  plot  again.  A 
conspiracy  was  formed  to  invite  the  king  to  a  tournament  at  Ox- 
ford, and  then  to  take  him  by  surprise  and  kill  him.  This 
murderous  enterprise,  which  was  agreed  upon  at  secret  meet- 
ings in  the  house  of  the  Abbot  of  Westminster,  was  betrayed  by 
the  Earl  of  Rutland,  one  of  the  conspirators.  The  king,  instead 
of  going  to  the  tournament,  or  staying  at  Windsor  (where  the 
conspirators  suddenly  went,  on  finding  themselves  discovered, 
with  the  hope  of  seizing  him),  retired  to  London,  proclaimed 
them  all  traitors,  and  advanced  upon  them  with  a  great  force. 
They  retired  into  the  west  of  England,  proclaiming  Richard 
king  ;  but  the  people  rose  against  them,  and  they  were  all  slain. 
Their  treason  hastened  the  death  of  the  deposed  monarch. 
V/hether  he  was  killed  by  hired  assassins,  or  whether  he  was 
starved  to  death,  or  whether  he  refused  food  on  hearing  of  his 
brothers  being  killed  (who  were  in  that  plot),  is  very  doubtful, 
lie  met  his  death  somehow  ;  and  his  body  was  publicly  shown 
at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  with  only  the  lower  part  of  the  face  un- 
covered. I  can  scarcely  doubt  that  he  was  killed  by  the  king's 
orders. 

The  French  wife  of  the  miserable  Richard  was  now  only 
ten  years  old;  and  when  her  father,  Charles  of  France,  heard 
rf  her  misfortunes  and  of  her  lonely  condition  in  England,  he 
V.  cnt  mad,  as  he  had  several  times  done  before  during  the  last 
live  or  six  years.  The  French  Dukes  of  Burgundy  and  Bourbon 
look  up  the  poor  girl's  cause,  without  caring  much  about  it,  but 
en  the  chance  of  getting  something  out  of  England.  The 
people  of  Bordeaux,  who  had  a  sort  of  superstitious  attachment 
to  the  memory  of  Richard,  because  he  was  born  there,  swore 
by  the  Lord  that  he  had  been  the  best  man  in  all  his  kingdom, 
— which  was  going  rather  far, — and  promised  to  do  great  things 
against  the  English.    Nevertheless,  when  they  came  to  consider 


164  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

that  they  and  the  whole  people  of  France  were  ruined  by  their 
own  nobles,  and  that  the  English  rule  was  much  the  better  of 
the  two,  they  cooled  down  again  ;  and  the  two  dukes,  although 
they  were  very  great  men,  could  do  nothing  without  them. 
Then  began  negotiations  between  France  and  Efigland  for  the 
sending  home  to  Paris  of  the  poor  little  queen,  with  all  her 
jewels,  and  her  fortune  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs  in  gold 
The  king  was  quite  willing  to  restore  the  young  lady,  and  even 
the  jewels  ;  but  he  said  he  really  could  not  part  with  the  money. 
So  at  last  she  was  safely  deposited  at  Paris  without  her  fortune  ; 
and  then  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  (who  was  cousin  to  the  French 
king)  began  to  quarrel  with  the  Duke  of  Orleans  (who  was 
brother  to  the  French  king)  about  the  whole  matter ;  and  those 
two  dukes  made  France  even  more  wretched  than  ever. 

As  the  idea  of  conquering  Scotland  was  still  popular  at  home, 
the  king  marched  to  the  River  Tyne,  and  demanded  homage 
of  the  king  of  that  country.  This  being  refused,  he  advanced 
to  Edinburgh,  but  did  little  there  ;  for  his  army  being  in  want 
of  provisions,  and  the  Scotch  being  very  careful  to  hold  him  in 
check  without  giving  battle,  he  was  obliged  to  retire.  It  is  to 
his  immortal  honor,  that  in  this  sally  he  burnt  no  villages  and 
slaughtered  no  people,  but  was  particularly  careful  that  his  army 
should  be  merciful  and  harmless.  It  was  a  great  example  in 
those  ruthless  times. 

A  war  among  the  Border  people  of  England  and  Scotland 
went  on  for  twelve  months  ;  and  then  the  Earl  of  Northumber- 
land, the  nobleman  who  had  helped  Henry  to  the  crown,  began 
to  rebel  against  him,  probably  because  nothing  that  Henry  could 
do  for  him  would  satisfy  his  extravagant  expectations.  There 
was  a  certain  Welsh  gentleman,  named  Owen  Glendower,  who 
had  been  a  student  in  one  of  the  inns  of  court,  and  had  after- 
wards been  in  the  service  of  the  late  king,  whose  Welsh  property 
was  taken  from  him  by  a  powerful  lord  related  to  the  present 
king,  who  was  his  neighbor.  Appealing  for  redress,  and  getting 
none,  he  took  up  arms,  was  made  an  outlaw,  and  declared  him- 
self sovereign  of  Wales.  He  pretended  to  be  a  magician  ;  and 
not  only  were  the  Welsh  people  stupid  enough  to  believe  him, 
but  even  Henry  believed  him  too  ;  for,  making  three  expeditions 
into  Wales,  and  being  three  times  driven  back  by  the  wildness 
of  the  country,  the  bad  weather,  and  the  skill  of  Glendower,  he 
thought  he  was  defeated  by  the  Welshman's  magic  arts.  How- 
ever, he  took  Lord  Grey  and  Sir  Edmund  Mortimer  prisoners, 
and  allowed  the  relatives  of  Lord  Grey  to  ransom  him,  but 
would  not  extend  such  favor  to  Sir  Edmund  Mortimer.     Now 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FOURTH.  165 

Henry  Percy,  called  Hotspur,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Northumber- 
land, who  was  married  to  Mortimer's  sister,  is  supposed  to  have 
taken  offence  at  this  ;  and  therefore,  in  conjunction  with  his 
father  and  some  others,  to  have  joined  Owen  Glendower,  and 
risen  against  Henry.  It  is  by  no  means  clear  that  this  was  the 
real  cause  of  the  conspiracy  ;  but  perhaps  it  was  made  the  pre- 
text. It  was  formed,  and  was  very  powerful  ;  including  Scroop, 
Archbishop  of  York,  and  the  Earl  of  Douglas,  a  powerful  and 
brave  Scottish  nobleman.  The  king  was  prompt  and  active, 
and  the  two  armies  met  at  Shrewsbury. 

There  were  about  fourteen  thousand  men  in  each.  The  old 
Earl  of  Northumberland  being  sick,  the  rebel  forces  were  led 
by  his  son.  The  king  wore  plain  armor  to  deceive  the  enemy  ; 
and  four  noblemen,  with  the  same  object,  wore  the  royal  arms. 
The  rebel  charge  was  so  furious,  that  every  one  of  those  gentle- 
men was  killed,  the  royal  standard  was  beaten  down,  and  the 
young  Prince  of  Wales  was  severely  wounded  in  the  face.  But 
he  was  one  of  the  bravest  and  best  soldiers  that  ever  lived  ; 
and  he  fought  so  well,  and  the  king's  troops  were  so  encouraged 
by  his  bold  example,  that  they  rallied  immediately,  and  cut  the 
enemy's  forces  all  to  pieces.  Hotspur  was  killed  by  an  arrow 
in  the  brain  ;  and  the  rout  was  so  complete,  that  the  whole  re- 
bellion was  struck  down  by  this  one  blow.  The  Earl  of  North- 
umberland surrendered  himself  soon  after  hearing  of  the  death 
of  his  son,  and  received  a  pardon  for  all  his  offences. 

There  were  some  lingerings  of  rebellion  yet ;  Owen  Glen- 
dower being  retired  to  Wales,  and  a  preposterous  story  being 
spread  among  the  ignorant  people  that  King  Richard  was  still 
alive.  How  they  could  have  believed  such  nonsense  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  imagine  ;  but  they  certainly  did  suppose  that  the  court 
fool  of  the  late  king,  who  was  something  like  him,  was  he  him- 
self ;  so  that  it  seemed  as  if,  after  giving  so  much  trouble  to 
the  country  in  his  life,  he  was  still  to  trouble  it  after  his  death. 
This  was  not  the  worst.  The  young  Earl  of  March  and  his 
brother  were  stolen  out  of  Windsor  Castle.  Being  retaken, 
and  being  found  to  have  been  spirited  away  by  one  Lady 
Spencer,  she  accused  her  own  brother,  that  Earl  of  Rutland 
who  was  in  the  former  conspiracy  and  was  now  Duke  of  York, 
of  being  in  the  plot.  For  this  he  was  ruined  in  fortune,  though 
not  put  to  death  ;  and  then  another  plot  arose  among  the  old 
Earl  of  Northumberland,  some  other  lords,  and  that  same 
Scroop,  Archbishop  of  York,  who  was  with  the  rebels  before. 
'J'hese  conspirators  caused  a  writing  to  be  posted  on  the  church- 
doors,  accusing  the  king  of  a  variety  of  crimes ;  but  the  king 


1 66  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

being  eager  and  vigilant  to  oppose  them,  they  were  all  taken, 
and  the  archbishop  was  executed.  This  was  the  first  time  that 
a  great  churchman  had  been  slain  by  the  law  in  England  ;  but 
the  king  was  resolved  that  it  should  be  done,  and  done  it  was. 

The  next  most  remarkable  event  of  this  time  was  the 
seizure  by  Henry  of  the  heir  to  the  Scottish  throne, — James,  a 
boy  of  nine  years  old.  He  had  been  put  aboard  ship  by  his 
father,  the  Scottish  King  Robert,  to  save  him  from  the  designs 
of  his  uncle,  when,  on  his  way  to  France,  he  was  accidentally 
taken  by  some  English  cruisers.  He  remained  a  prisoner  in 
England  for  nineteen  years,  and  became  in  his  prison  a  student 
and  a  famous  poet. 

With  the  exception  of  occasional  troubles  with  the  Welsh 
and  with  the  French,  the  rest  of  King  Henry's  reign  was  quiet 
enough.  But  the  king  was  far  from  happy,  and  probably  was 
troubled  in  his  conscience  by  knowing  that  he  had  usurped  the 
crown,  and  had  occasioned  the  death  of  his  miserable  cousin. 
The  Prince  of  Wales,  though  brave  and  generous,  is  said  to 
have  been  wild  and  dissipated,  and  even  to  have  drawn  his 
sword  on  Gascoigne,  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench, 
because  he  was  firm  in  dealing  impartially  with  one  of  his  disso- 
lute companions.  Upon  this  the  chief  justice  is  said  to  have 
ordered  him  immediately  to  prison  ;  the  Prince  of  Wales  is  said 
\o  have  submitted  with  a  good  grace  ;  and  the  king  is  said  to 
have  exclaimed,  "  Happy  is  the  monarch  who  has  so  just  a 
judge,  and  a  son  so  willing  to  obey  the  laws."  This  is  all  very 
doubtful  ,  and  so  is  another  story  (of  which  Shakespeare  has 
made  beautiful  use),  that  the  prince  once  took  the  crown  out  of 
his  father's  chamber  as  he  was  sleeping,  and  tried  it  on  his  own 
head. 

The  king's  health  sank  more  and  more,  and  he  became  sub- 
ject to  violent  eruptions  on  the  face,  and  to  bad  epileptic  fits, 
Rnd  his  spirits  sank  every  day.  At  last,  as  he  was  praying  be- 
fore the  shrine  of  St  Edward,  at  Westminster  Abbey,  he  was 
seized  with  a  terrible  fit,  and  was  carried  into  the  abbot's 
chamber,  where  he  presently  died.  It  had  been  foretold  that 
he  would  die  at  Jerusalem,  which  certainly  is  not,  and  never 
was,  Westminster.  But  as  the  abbot's  room  had  long  been 
called  the  Jerusalem  Chamber,  people  said  it  was  all  the  same 
thing,  and  were  quite  satisfied  with  the  prediction. 

The  king  died  on  the  20th  of  March,  1413,  in  the  forty- 
seventh  year  of  his  age,  and  the  fourteenth  of  his  reign.  He 
was  buried  in  Canterbury  Cathedral.  He  had  been  twice 
married,  and  had,  by  his  first  wife,  a  family  of  four  sons  and 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENkTHE  Er^TM.s.  iSj 

two  daughters.  Considering  his  dupHcity  before  he  came  to 
the  throne,  his  unjust  seizure  of  it,  and,  above  all,  his  making 
that  monstrous  law  for  the  burning  of  what  the  priests  called 
heretics,  he  was  a  reasonably  good  king,  as  kings  went. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

england  under  henry  the  fifth 

First  Part. 

The  Prince  of  Wales  began  his  reign  like  a  generous  and 
honest  man.  He  set  the  young  Earl  of  March  free  ;  he  re- 
stored their  estates  and  their  honors  to  the  Percy  family,  who 
had  lost  them  by  their  rebellion  against  his  father  ;  he  ordered 
the  imbecile  and  unfortunate  Richard  to  be  honorably  buried 
among  the  kings  of  England  ;  and  he  dismissed  all  his  wild 
companions,  with  assurances  that  they  should  not  want,  if  they 
would  resolve  to  be  steady,  faithful,  and  true. 

It  is  much  easier  to  burn  men  than  to  burn  their  opinions  ; 
and  those  of  the  Lollards  were  spreading  every  day.  The 
Lollards  were  represented  by  the  priests — probably  falsely  for 
the  most  part — to  entertain  treasonable  designs  against  the 
new  king  ;  and  Henry,  suffering  himself  to  be  worked  upon  by 
these  representations,  sacrificed  his  friend  Sir  John  Oldcastle, 
the  Lord  Cobham,  to  them,  after  trying  in  vain  to  convert  him 
by  arguments.  He  was  declared  guilty,  as  the  head  of  the 
sect,  and  sentenced  to  the  flames  ;  but  he  escaped  from  the 
Tower  before  the  day  ot  execution  (postponed  lor  fifty  days  by 
the  king  himself),  and  summoned  the  Lollards  to  meet  him  near 
London  on  a  certain  day.  So  the  priests  told  the  king,  at  least. 
I  doubt  whether  there  was  any  conspiracy  beyond  such  as  was 
got  up  by  their  agents.  On  the  day  appointed,  instead  of  five- 
and-twenty  thousand  men,  under  the  command  of  Sir  John  Old- 
castle, in  the  meadows  of  St.  Giles,  the  king  found  only  eighty 
nuen,  and  no  Sir  John  at  all.  There  was  in  another  place  an 
addle-headed  brewer,  who  had  gold  trappings  to  his  horses,  and 
a  pair  of  gilt  spurs  in  his  breast,  expecting  to  be  made  a  knight 
next  day  by  Sir  John,  and  so  to  gain  the  right  to  wear  them  ; 
but  there  was  no  Sir  John,  nor  did  anybody  give  information 


Ibd  .   r^jiTTT  -^  rj /STORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

respecting  him,  though  the  king  offered  great  rewards  for  such 
Intelligence.  Thirty  of  these  unfortunate  Lollards  were  hanged 
and  drawn  immediately,  and  were  then  burnt,  gallows  and  all ; 
and  the  various  prisons  in  and  around  London  were  crammed 
full  of  others.  Some  of  these  unfortunate  men  made  various 
confessions  of  treasonable  designs  ;  but  such  confessions  were 
easily  got,  under  torture  and  the  fear  of  fire,  and  are  very  little 
to  be  trusted.  To  finish  the  sad  story  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle  at 
once,  I  may  mention  that  he  escaped  into  Wales,  and  remained 
there  safely  for  four  years.  When  discovered  by  Lord  Powis, 
it  is  very  doubtful  if  he  would  have  been  taken  alive, — so  great 
was  the  old  soldier's  bravery, — if  a  miserable  old  woman  had 
not  come  behind  him,  and  broken  his  legs  with  a  stool.  He 
Avas  carried  to  London  in  a  horse-litter,  was  fastened  by  an  iron 
chain  to  a  gibbet,  and  so  roasted  to  death. 

To  make  the  state  of  France  as  plain  as  I  can  in  a  few 
words,  I  should  tell  you  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans  and  the  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  commonly  called  "John  without  fear,"  had  had  a 
grand  reconciliation  of  their  quarrel  in  the  last  reign,  and  had 
appeared  to  be  quite  in  a  heavenly  state  of  mind.  Immediately 
after  which,  on  a  Sunda}^,  in  the  public  streets  of  Paris,  the 
Duke  of  Orleans  was  murdered  by  a  party  of  twenty  men,  set 
on  by  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  according  to  his  own  deliberate 
confession.  The  widow  of  King  Richard  had  been  married  in 
France  to  the  eldest  son  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  The  poor 
mad  king  was  quite  powerless  to  help  her  ;  and  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy  became  the  real  master  of  France.  Isabella  dying, 
her  husband  (Duke  of  Orleans,  since  the  death  of  his  father) 
married  the  daughter  of  the  Count  of  Armagnac,  who,  being  a 
much  abler  man  than  his  young  sonin-law,  headed  his  party  ; 
thence  called  after  him  Armagnacs.  Thu5)  France  was  now  in 
this  terrible  condition,  that  it  had  in  it  the  party  of  the  king's 
£on,  the  Dauphin  Louis  ;  the  party  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
who  was  the  father  of  the  dauphin's  ill-used  wife  ;  and  the  party 
of  the  Armagnacs, — all  hating  each  other,  all  fighting  together, 
all  composed  of  the  most  depraved  nobles  that  the  earth  has 
ever  known,  and  all  tearing  unhappy  France  to  pieces. 

The  late  king  had  watched  these  dissensions  from  England, 
sensible  (like  the  French  people)  that  no  enemy  of  France  could 
injure  her  more  than  her  own  nobility.  The  present  king  now 
advanced  a  claim  to  the  French  throne.  His  demand  being,  of 
course,  refused,  he  reduced  his  proposal  to  a  certain  large 
amount  of  French  territory,  and  to  demanding  the  French 
Princess  Catherine  in  marriage,  with  a  fortune  of  two  millions 


ENGLAIVD  UNDER  HEIVRY  THE  FFETH.  169 

of  golden  crowns.  He  was  offered  less  territory,  and  fewer 
crowns,  and  no  princess  ;  but  he  called  his  ambassadors  home, 
and  prepared  for  war.  Then  he  proposed  to  take  the  princess 
with  one  million  of  crowns.  The  French  court  replied  that  he 
should  have  the  princess  with  two  hundred  thousand  crowns 
less  ;  he  said  this  would  not  do  (he  had  never  seen  the  princess 
in  his  life),  and  assembled  his  army  at  Southampton.  There 
was  a  short  plot  at  home,  just  at  that  time,  for  deposing  him, 
and  making  the  Earl  of  March  king  ;  but  the  conspirators  were 
all  speedily  condemned  and  executed,  and  the  king  embarked 
for  France. 

It  is  dreadful  to  observe  how  long  a  bad  example  will  be 
followed  ;  but  it  is  encouraging  to  know  that  a  good  example  is 
never  thrown  away.  The  king's  first  act,  on  disembarking  at 
the  mouth  of  the  river  Seine,  three  miles  from  Harfleur,  was  to 
imitate  his  father,  and  to  proclaim  his  solemn  orders  that  the 
lives  and  property  of  the  peaceable  inhabitants  should  be  re- 
spected on  pain  of  death.  It  is  agreed  by  French  writers,  to  his 
lasting  renown,  that  even  while  his  soldiers  were  suffering  the 
greatest  distress  for  want  of  food,  these  commands  were  rigidly 
obeyed. 

With  an  army  in  all  of  thirty  thousand  men,  he  besieged  the 
town  of  Harfleur  both  by  sea  and  land  for  five  weeks ;  at  the 
end  of  which  time  the  town  surrendered,  and  the  inhabitants 
were  allowed  to  depart  with  only  fivepence  each,  and  a  part  of 
their  clothes.  All  the  rest  of  their  possessions  was  divided 
amongst  the  English  army.  But  that  army  suffered  so  much, 
in  spite  of  its  successes,  from  disease  and  privation,  that  it  was 
already  reduced  one  half.  Still,  the  king  was  determined  not 
to  retire  until  he  had  struck  a  greater  blow.  Therefore,  against 
the  advice  of  all  his  counsellors,  he  moved  on  with  his  little 
force  towards  Calais.  When  he  came  up  to  the  river  Somme 
he  was  unable  to  cross,  in  consequence  of  the  fort  being  forti- 
fied ;  and,  as  the  English  moved  up  the  left  bank  of  the  river 
looking  for  a  crossing,  the  French,  who  had  broken  all  the 
bridges,  moved  up  the  right  bank,  watching  them,  and  waiting 
to  attack  them  when  they  should  try  to  pass  it.  At  last  the 
English  found  a  crossing,  and  got  safely  over.  The  French 
held  a  council  of  war  at  Rouen,  resolved  to  give  the  English 
battle,  and  sent  heralds  to  King  Henry  to  know  by  which  road 
he  was  going.  "  By  the  road  that  will  take  me  straight  to 
Calais  !  "  said  the  king,  and  sent  them  away  with  a  present  of 
a  hundred  crowns. 

The   English   moved  on  until  they  beheld  the  French,  and 


170 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


then  the  king  gave  orders  to  form  in  line  of  battle.  The  French 
not  coming  on,  the  army  broke  up,  after  lemainingin  battle- 
array  till  night,  and  got  good  rest  and  refreshment  at  a  neigh- 
boring village.  The  French  were  now  all  lying  in  another  vil- 
lage, through  which  they  knew  the  English  must  pass.  They 
were  resolved  that  the  English  should  begin  the  battle.  The 
English  had  no  means  of  retreat,  if  their  king  had  any  such  in- 
tention :  and  so  the  two  armies  passed  the  night  close  to» 
gether. 

To  understand  these  armies  well,  you  must  bear  in  mind  that 
the  immense  French  army  had,  among  its  notable  persons,  al- 
most the  whole  of  that  wicked  nobility  whose  debauchery  had 
made  France  a  desert ;  and  so  besotted  were  they  by  pride,  and 
by  contempt  for  the  common  people,  that  they  had  scarcely  any 
bowmen  (if  indeed  they  had  any  at  all)  in  their  whole  enormous 
number,  which,  compared  with  the  English  army,  was  at  least 
as  six  to  one  ;  for  these  proud  fools  had  said  that  the  bow  was 
not  a  fit  weapon  for  knightly  hands,  and  that  France  must  be 
defended  by  gentlemen  only.  We  shall  see  presently  what 
hand  the  gentlemen  made  of  it. 

Now,  on  the  English  side,  among  the  little  force,  there  was 
a  good  proportion  of  men  who  were  not  gentlemen,  by  any 
means,  but  who  v/ere  good  stout  archers  for  all  that.  Among 
them,  in  the  morning, — having  slept  little  at  night,  while  the 
French  were  carousing  and  making  sure  of  victory, — the  king 
rode,  on  a  gray  horse;  wearing  on  his  head  a  helmet  of 
shining  steel,  surmounted  by  a  crown  of  gold,  sparkling  with 
precious  stones  ;  and  bearing  over  his  armor,  embroidered  to- 
gether, the  arms  of  England  and  the  arms  of  France.  The 
archers  looked  at  the  shining  helmet,  and  the  crown  of  gold, 
and  the  sparkling  jewels,  and  admired  them  all  ;  but  what  they 
admired  most  was  the  king's  cheerful  face,  and  his  bright  blue 
eye,  as  he  told  them,  that,  for  himself,  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  conquer  there  or  to  die  there,  and  that  England  should  never 
have  a  ransom  to  pay  for  him.  There  was  one  brave  knight, 
who  chanced  to  say  that  he  wished  some  of  the  many  gallant 
gentlemen  and  good  soldiers,  who  were  then  idle  at  home  in 
England,  were  there  to  increase  their  numbers.  But  the  king 
told  him,  that,  for  his  part,  he  did  not  wish  for  one  more  man. 
"  The  fewer  we  have,"  said  he,  "  the  greater  will  be  the  honoi 
we  shall  win  !  "  His  men,  being  now  all  in  good  heart,  were 
refreshed  with  bread  and  wine,  and  heard  prayers,  and  waited 
quietly  for  the  French.  The  king  waited  for  the  French,  be- 
cause they  were  drawn  up  thirty  deep  (the  little  English  force 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIFTH. 


171 


was  only  three  deep)  on  very  difficult  and  heavy  ground  ;  and 
he  knew  that  when  they  moved,  there  must  be  confusion  among 
them. 

As  they  did  not  move  he  sent  off  two  parties, — one  to  lie 
concealed  in  a  wood  on  the  left  of  the  French,  the  other  to  set 
fire  to  some  houses  behind  the  French  after  the  battle  should 
be  begun.  This  was  scarcely  done,  when  three  of  the  proud 
French  gentlemen,  who  were  to  defend  their  country  without 
any  help  from  the  base  peasants,  came  riding  out,  calling  upon 
the  English  to  surrender.  The  king  warned  those  gentlemen 
himself  to  retire  with  all  speed,  if  they  cared  for  their  lives, 
and  ordered  the  English  banners  to  advance.  Upon  that,  Sir 
Thomas  Erpingham,  a  great  English  general  who  commanded 
the  archers,  threw  his  truncheon  into  the  air  joyfully ;  and  all 
the  Englishmen,  kneeling  down  upon  the  ground,  and  biting  it 
as  if  they  took  possession  of  the  country,  rose  up  with  a  great 
shout,  and  fell  upon  the  French. 

Every  archer  was  furnished  with  a  great  stake  tipped  with 
iron  ;  and  his  orders  were,  to  thrust  this  stake  into  the  ground, 
to  discharge  his  arrow,  and  then  to  fall  back  when  the  French 
horsemen  came  on.  As  the  haughty  French  gentlemen  who 
were  to  break  the  English  archers,  and  utterly  destroy  them  with 
their  knightly  lances,  came  riding  up,  they  were  received  with 
such  a  blinding  storm  of  arrows  that  they  broke  and  turned. 
Horses  and  men  rolled  over  one  another,  and  the  confusion 
was  terrific.  Those  who  rallied,  and  charged  the  archers,  got 
among  the  stakes  on  slippery  and  boggy  ground,  and  were  so 
bewildered  that  the  English  archers — who  wore  no  armor,  and 
even  took  off  their  leathern  coats  to  be  more  active — cut  them 
to  pieces,  root  and  branch.  Only  three  French  horsemen  got 
within  the  stakes,  and  those  were  instantly  despatched.  All 
this  time  the  dense  French  army,  being  in  armor,  were  sinking 
knee-deep  into  the  mire  ;  while  the  light  English  archers,  half 
naked,  were  as  fresh  and  active  as  if  they  were  fighting  on  a 
marble  floor. 

But  now  the  second  division  of  the  French,  coming  to  the 
relief  of  the  first,  closed  up  in  a  firm  mass  ;  the  English,  headed 
by  the  king,  attacked  them  ;  and  the  deadliest  part  of  the  bat- 
tle began.  The  king's  brother,  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  was 
struck  down,  and  numbers  of  the  French  surrounded  him  ;  but 
King  Henry,  standing  over  the  body,  fought  like  a  lion  until 
they  were  beaten  off.  Presently  came  up  a  band  of  eighteen 
French  knights,  bearing  the  banner  of  a  certain  French  lord, 
who  had  sworn  to  kill  or  take  the  English  king.  One  of  thera 
8 


1^2  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

struck  him  such  a  blow  with  a  battle-axe,  that  he  reeled,  and 
fell  upon  his  knees  ;  but  his  faithful  men,  immediately  closing 
round  him,  killed  every  one  of  those  eighteen  knights,  and  so 
that  French  lord  never  kept  his  oath. 

The  French  Duke  of  Alen^on,  seeing  this,  made  a  desperate 
charge,  and  cut  his  way  close  up  to  the  royal  standard  of  Eng- 
land. He  beat  down  the  Duke  of  York,  who  was  standmg 
near  it ;  and  when  the  king  came  to  his  rescue,  struck  off  a 
piece  of  the  crown  he  wore.  But  he  never  struck  another  blow 
in  this  world  ;  for,  even  as  he  was  in  the  act  of  saying  who  he 
was,  and  that  he  surrendered  to  the  king,  and  even  as  the  king 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  give  him  a  safe  and  honorable  accept- 
ance of  the  offer,  he  fell  dead,  pierced  by  innumerable  wounds. 

The  death  of  this  nobleman  decided  the  battle.  The  third 
division  of  the  French  army,  ■w'hich  had  never  struck  a  blow  yet, 
and  which  was,  in  itself,  more  than  double  the  whole  English 
power,  broke  and  fied.  At  this  time  of  the  fight,  the  English, 
who  as  yet  had  made  no  prisoners,  began  to  take  them  in  im- 
mense numbers,  and  were  still  occupied  in  doing  so,  or  in  kill- 
ing those  who  would  not  surrender,  when  a  great  noise  arose 
in  the  rear  of  the  French, — their  flying  banners  were  seen  to 
stop, — and  Kmg  Henry,  supposing  a  great  re-enforcement  to 
have  arrived,  gave  orders  that  all  the  prisoners  should  be  put 
to  death.  As  soon,  however,  as  it  was  found  that  the  noise  was 
only  occasioned  by  a  body  of  plundering  peasants,  the  terrible 
massacre  was  stopped. 

Then  King  Henry  called  to  him  the  French  herald,  and 
asked  him  to  whom  the  victory  belonged. 

The  herald  replied,  "To  the  King  of  England." 

"  We  have  not  made  this  havoc  and  slaughter,"  said  the 
kmg.  "  It  is  the  wrath  of  Heaven  on  the  sins  of  France. 
What  IS  the  name  of  that  castle  yonder  ? " 

The  herald  answered  him,  "  My  lord,  it  is  the  Castle  of 
Azincourt." 

Said  the  king,  "  From  henceforth  this  battle  shall  be  known 
to  posterity  by  the  name  of  the  battle  of  Azmcourt." 

Our  English  historians  have  made  it  Agmcourt  ;  but  under 
that  name  it  will  ever  be  famous  in  English  annals. 

The  loss  upon  the  French  side  was  enormous.  Three  dukes 
were  killed,  two  more  were  taken  prisoners  j  seven  counts  were 
killed,  three  more  were  taken  prisoners  ;  and  ten  thousand 
knights  and  gentlemen  were  slain  upon  the  field.  The  Eng- 
lish loss  amounted  to  sixteen  hundred  men,  among  whom  were 
the  Duke  of  York  and  the  Earl  of  Suffolk. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIFTH  173 

War  is  a  dreadful  thing  ;  and  it  is  appalling  to  know  how 
the  English  were  obliged,  next  morning,  to  kill  those  prisoners, 
mortally  wounded,  who  yet  writhed  in  agony  upon  the  ground  : 
how  the  dead  upon  the  French  side  were  stripped  by  their  own 
countrymen  and  countrywomen,  and  afterwards  buried  in  great 
pits  ;  how  the  dead  upon  the  English  side  were  piled  up  in  a 
great  barn,  and  how  their  bodies  and  the  barn  were  all  burned 
together  !  It  is  in  such  things,  and  in  many  more,  much  too 
horrible  to  relate,  that  the  real  desolation  and  wickedness  of 
war  consists.  Nothing  can  make  war  otherwise  than  horrible. 
But  the  dark  side  of  it  was  little  thought  of  and  soon  forgotten  ; 
and  It  cast  no  shade  of  trouble  on  the  English  people,  except 
on  those  who  had  lost  friends  or  relations  in  the  fight.  They 
welcomed  their  king  home  with  shouts  of  rejoicing,  and  plunged 
into  the  water  to  bear  him  ashore  on  their  shoulders,  and 
flocked  out  in  crowds  to  welcome  him  in  every  town  through 
which  he  passed,  and  hung  rich  carpets  and  tapestries  out  of 
the  wmdows,  and  strewed  the  streets  with  flowers,  and  made 
the  fountains  run  with  wine,  as  the  great  field  of  iA 'jincourt  had 
run  with  blood. 

Second  Part, 

That  proud  and  wicked  French  nobility  who  -dragged  their 
country  to  destruction,  and  who  were  every  day  h.cA  every  year 
regarded  with  deeper  hatred  and  detestation  in  the  hearts  of 
the  French  people,  learned  nothing,  even  from  the  defeat  of 
Agincourt.  So  far  from  uniting  against  the  common  enemy, 
:hey  became,  among  themselves,  more  violent,  more  blood}*,  and 
more  false — if  that  were  possible — than  they  had  been  before. 
The  Count  of  Armagnac  persuaded  the  French  king  to  plunder 
of  her  treasures  Queen  Isabella  of  Eavaria,  and  to  make  her  a 
prisoner.  She,  who  had  hitherto  been  the  bitter  enemy  of  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  proposed  to  join  him,  in  revenge.  He  car- 
ried her  off  to  Troyes,  where  she  proclaimed  herself  Regent  of 
France,  and  made  him  her  lieutenant.  The  Armagnac  party 
were  at  t!iat  time  possessed  of  Paris  ,  but  one  of  the  gates  of 
the  city  being  secretly  opened  on  a  certain  night  to  a  party  of 
the  duke's  men,  they  got  into  Paris,  threw  into  the  prisons  all 
the  Armagnacs  upon  whom  they  could  lay  their  hands,  and,  a 
few  nights  afterwaids,  with  the  aid  of  a  furious  mob  of  sixty 
thousand  people,  broke  the  prisons  open,  and  killed  them  all. 
The  former  daupl'.in  VvQs  now  dead,  and  the  king's  third  son 
bore  the  title.     Him,  in  the  height   of  this  murderous  scene,  a 


174  "^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

French  knight  hurried  out  of  bed,  wrapped  in  a  sheet,  and  bore 
away  to  Poictiers.  So,  when  the  revengeful  Isabella  and  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy  entered  Paris  in  triumph  after  the  slaughter 
of  their  enemies,  the  dauphin  was  proclaimed  at  Poictiers  as 
the  real  regent. 

King  Henry  had  not  been  idle  since  his  victory  of  Agin- 
court,  but  had  repulsed  a  brave  attempt  of  the  French  to  recover 
Harfleur,  had  gradually  conquered  a  great  part  of  Normandy, 
and,  at  this  crisis  of  affairs,  took  the  important  town  of  Rouen, 
after  a  siege  of  half  a  year.  This  great  loss  so  alarmed  the  French, 
that  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  proposed  that  a  meeting  to  treat 
of  peace  should  be  held  between  the  French  and  the  English 
kings  in  a  plain  by  the  river  Seine.  On  the  appointed  day, 
King  Henry  appeared  there,  with  his  two  brothers,  Clarence 
and  Gloucester,  and  a  thousand  men.  The  unfortunate  French 
king,  being  more  mad  than  usual  that  day,  could  not  come ; 
but  the  queen  came,  and  with  her  ihe  Princess  Catherine,  who 
was  a  very  lovely  creature,  and  who  made  a  real  impression  on 
King  Henry,  now  that  he  saw  her  for  the  first  time.  This  was 
the  most  important  circumstance  that  arose  out  of  the  meeting. 

As  if  it  were  impossible  for  a  French  nobleman  of  that  time 
to  be  true  to  his  woid  of  honor  in  anything,  Henry  discovered 
that  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  was,  at  that  very  moment,  in  secret 
treaty  with  the  dauphin ,  and  he  therefore  abandoned  the 
negotiation. 

The  Duke  of  Buigundy  and  the  dauphin,  each  of  whom, 
with  the  best  reason,  distrusted  the  other  as  a  noble  ruffian  sur- 
rounded by  a  party  of  noble  ruffians,  were  rather  at  a  loss  how 
to  proceed  after  this  ;  but  at  length  they  agreed  to  meet  on  a 
bridge  over  the  liver  Yonne,  where  it  was  arranged  that  there 
should  be  two  strong  gates  put  up,  with  an  empty  space  between 
them,  and  that  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  should  come  into  that 
space  by  one  gate,  with  ten  men  only,  and  that  the  dauphin 
should  come  into  that  space  by  the  other  gate,  also  with  ten 
men,  and  no  more. 

So  far  the  dauphin  kept  his  word  :  but  no  farther.  When 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy  was  on  his  knee  before  him  in  the  act 
of  speaking,  one  of  the  dauphin's  noble  ruflnans  cut  the  said 
duke  down  with  a  small  axe,  and  others  speedily  finished  him. 

It  was  in  vain  for  the  dauphin  to  pretend  that  this  base 
murder  was  not  done  with  his  consent,  it  was  too  bad,  even 
for  France,  and  caused  a  general  horror.  The  duke's  heir 
hastened  to  make  a  treaty  with  King  Henr}-,  and  the  French 
queen  engaged  that  her  husband  should  consent  to  it,  whatever 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  FIFTH.  j^^ 

it  was.  Henry  made  peace,  on  condition  of  receiving  the  Prin- 
cess Catherine  in  marriage,  and  being  made  Regent  of  France 
during  the  rest  of  the  king's  lifetnne,  and  succeedmg  to  the 
French  crown  at  his  death.  He  was  soon  married  to  the  beau- 
tiful princess,  and  took  her  proudly  home  to  England,  where 
she  was  crowned  witli  great  honor  and  glor}'. 

This  peace  was  called  the  Perpetual  Peace  ;  we  shall  soon 
Bee  how  long  it  lasted.  Jt  gave  great  satisfaction  to  the  French 
people,  although  they  were  so  poor  and  miserable,  that,  at  the 
time  of  the  celebration  of  the  royal  marriage,  numbers  of  them 
were  dying  with  starvation,  on  the  dunghills  in  the  streets  of 
Paris.  There  was  some  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  dauphin 
m  some  few  parts  of  P'rance,  but  King  Henry  beat  it  all  down. 

And  now,  with  his  great  possessions  in  France  secuied,  and 
his  beautiful  wife  to  cheer  him,  and  a  son  born  to  give  him 
greater  happiness,  all  appeared  bright  before  him.  But  in  the 
fulness  of  his  triumph  and  the  height  of  his  power,  death  cam.e 
upon  him,  and  his  day  was  done.  When  he  fell  ill  at  Vin- 
cennes,  and  found  that  he  could  not  recover,  he  was  very  calm 
and  quiet,  and  spoke  serenely  to  those  who  wept  around  his 
bed.  His  wife  and  child,  he  said,  he  left  to  the  loving  care  of 
his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  and  his  other  faithful  nobles. 
He  gave  them  his  advice  that  England  should  establish  a 
friendship  with  the  new  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  offer  him  the 
regency  of  France  ;  that  it  should  not  set  free  the  royal  princes 
who  had  been  taken  at  Agincourt  ;  and  that,  whatever  quarrel 
might  arise  with  France,  England  should  never  make  peace 
without  holding  Normandy.  Then  he  laid  down  his  head, 
and  asked  the  attendant  priests  to  chant  the  penitential 
psalms.  Amid  which  solemn  sounds,  on  the  31st  of  August, 
1422,  in  only  the  thirty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  and  the  tenth  of 
his  reign.  King  Henry  the  Fifth  passed  away. 

Slowly  and  mournfully  they  carried  his  embalmed  body  in  a 
procession  of  great  state  to  Paris,  and  thence  to  Rouen,  where 
his  queen  was,  from  whom  the  sad  intelligence  of  his  death  was 
concealed  until  he  had  been  dead  some  days.  Thence,  lying 
on  a  bed  of  crimson  and  gold,  with  a  golden  crown  upon  the 
head,  and  a  golden  ball  and  sceptre  lying  in  the  nerveless 
hands,  they  carried  it  to  Calais,  with  such  a  great  retinue  as 
seemed  to  dye  the  road  black.  The  King  of  Scotland  acted 
as  chief  mourner,  all  the  royal  household  followed,  the  knights 
wore  black  armor  and  black  plumes  of  feathers ;  crowds  of 
men  bore  torches,  making  the  night  as  light  as  day;  and  the 
widowed  princess  followed  last  of  all.     At  Calais  there  was  a 


176  A     HFLD'S  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  ENGL  A IVD. 

fleet  of  ships  to  bring  the  funeral  host  to  Dover.  And  so,  by 
way  of  London  Bridge,  where  the  service  for  the  dead  was 
chanted  as  it  passed  along,  they  brought  the  body  to  West' 
minster  Abbey,  and  there  buried  it  with  great  respect. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

england  under  henry  the  sixth. 

Part  the  First. 

It  had  been  the  wish  of  the  late  king,  that  while  his  infant 
son,  King  Henry  the  Sixth,  at  this  time  only  nine  months  old, 
was  under  age,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  should  be  appointed 
regent.  The  English  Parliament,  however,  preferred  to  ap- 
point a  council  of  regency,  with  the  Duke  of  Bedford  at  its 
head ;  to  be  represented,  in  his  absence  only,  by  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester.  The  Parliament  would  seem  to  have  been  wise  in 
this ;  for  Gloucester  soon  showed  himself  to  be  ambitious  and 
troublesome,  and  in  the  gratification  of  his  own  personal 
schemes,  gave  dangerous  offence  to  the  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
which  was  with  difficulty  adjusted. 

As  that  Duke  declined  the  Regency  of  France,  it  was  be- 
stowed by  the  poor  French  king  upon  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 
But  the  French  king  dying  within  two  months,  the  dauphin  in- 
stantly asserted  his  claim  to  the  French  throne,  and  was  ac- 
tually crowned  under  the  title  of  Charles  the  Seventh.  The 
Duke  of  Bedford,  to  be  a  match  for  him,  entered  into  a  friendly 
league  with  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  and  Brittany,  and  gave 
them  his  two  sisters  in  marriage.  War  with  France  was  im- 
mediately renewed,  and  the  perpetual  peace  came  to  an  un- 
timely end. 

In  the  first  campaign,  the  English,  aided  by  this  alliance, 
were  speedily  successful  As  Scotland,  however,  had  sent  the 
French  five  thousand  men,  and  might  send  more,  or  attack  the 
North  of  England  while  England  was  busy  with  France,  it  was 
considered  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  offer  the  Scottish 
King  James,  who  had  been  so  long  imprisoned,  his  liberty,  on 
his  paying  forty  thousand  pounds  for  his  board  and  lodging 
during  nineteen  years,  and  engaging  to  forbid  his  subjects 
from  serving  under  the  flag  of  France,     \%  is  pleasant  to  know. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  177 

not  only  that  the  amiable  captive  at  last  regained  his  freedom 
upon  these  terms,  but  that  he  married  a  noble  English  iady, 
with  whom  he  had  been  long  in  love,  and  became  an  excellent 
king.  I  am  afraid  we  have  met  with  some  kings  in  this  his- 
tory, and  shall  meet  with  some  more,  who  would  have  been  very 
much  the  better,  and  would  have  left  the  world  much  happier, 
if  they  had  been  imprisoned  nineteen  years  too. 

In  the  second  campaign,  the  English  gained  a  considerable 
victory  at  Verneuil,  in  a  battle  which  was  chiefly  remarkable, 
otherwise,  for  their  resorting  to  the  odd  expedient  of  tying 
their  baggage-horses  together  by  the  heads  and  tails,  and  jum- 
bHng  them  up  with  the  baggage,  so  as  to  convert  them  into  a 
sort  of  live  fortification, — which  was  found  useful  to  the  troops, 
but  which  I  should  think  was  not  agreeable  to  the  horses.  For 
three  years  afterwards  very  little  was  done,  owing  to  both  sides 
being  too  poor  for  war,  which  is  a  ver}'  expensive  entertain- 
ment ;  but  a  council  was  then  held  in  Paris,  in  which  it  was  de- 
cided to  lay  siege  to  the  town  of  Orleans,  which  was  a  place  of 
great  importance  to  the  dauphin's  cause.  An  EngUsh  army  of 
ten  thousand  men  was  despatched  on  this  service,  under  the 
command  of  the  Earl  of  Salisbury,  a  general  of  fame.  He 
being  unfortunately  killed  early  in  the  siege,  the  Earl  of  Suffolk 
took  his  place  ,  under  whom  (re-enforced  by  Sir  John  Falstaff, 
who  brought  up  four  hundred  wagons  laden  with  salt  herrings 
and  other  provisions  for  the  troops,  and,  beating  off  the  French, 
who  tried  to  intercept  him,  came  victorious  out  of  a  hot  skir- 
mish, which  was  afterwards  called  in  jest  the  Battle  of  the  Her- 
rings) the  town  of  Orleans  was  so  completely  hemmed  in,  that 
the  besieged  proposed  to  yield  it  up  to  their  countryman,  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy.  The  English  general,  however,  replied 
that  his  Englishmen  had  won  it,  so  far,  by  their  blood  and 
valor,  and  that  his  Englishmen  must  have  it.  There  seemed  to 
be  no  hope  for  the  town,  or  for  the  dauphin,  who  was  so  dis- 
mayed that  he  even  thought  of  flying  to  Scotland  or  to  Spain, 
when  a  peasant-girl  rose  up,  and  changed  the  whole  state  of 
affairs. 

The  story  of  this  peasant-girl  I  have  now  to  tell. 

Part  THE  Second. 

THE   STORY   OF   JOAN    OF   ARC. 

In  a  bemote  village  among  some  wild  hills  in  the  province 
of  Lorraine,  there  lived  a  countryman  whose  name  was  Jacques 


178  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

d'Arc.  He  had  a  daughter,  Joan  of  Arc,  who  was  at  this  time 
in  her  twentieth  year.  She  had  been  a  solitary  girl  from  her 
childhood  ;  she  had  often  tended  sheep  and  cattle  for  whole 
days  where  no  human  figure  was  seen  or  human  voice  heard  ; 
and  she  had  often  knelt,  for  hours  together,  in  the  gloomy, 
empty  little  village  chapel,  looking  up  at  the  altar  and  at  the 
dim  lamp  burning  before  it,  until  she  fancied  that  she  saw 
shadowy  figures  standing  there,  and  even  that  she  heard  them 
speak  to  her.  The  people  in  that  part  of  France  were'  very 
ignorant  and  superstitious  ;  and  they  had  many  ghostly  tales 
to  tell  about  what  they  had  dreamed,  and  what  they  saw  among 
the  lonely  hills  when  the  clouds  and  the  mists  were  resting  on 
them.  So  they  easily  believed  that  Joan  saw  strange  sights  ; 
and  they  whispered  among  themselves  that  angels  and  spirits 
talked  to  her. 

At  last,  Joan  told  her  father  that  she  had  one  day  been  sur- 
prised by  a  great  unearthly  light,  and  had  afterwards  heard  a 
solemn  voice,  which  said  it  was  St.  Michael's  voice,  telling  her 
that  she  was  to  go  and  help  the  dauphin.  Soon  after  this 
(she  said),  St.  Catherine  and  St,  Margaret  had  appeared  to  her 
with  sparkling  crowns  upon  their  heads,  and  had  encouraged 
her  to  be  virtuous  and  resolute.  These  visions  had  returned 
sometimes,  but  the  voices  very  often ;  and  the  voices  always 
said,  "Joan,  thou  art  appointed  by  Heaven  to  go  and  help  the 
dauphin  ! ''  She  almost  always  heard  them  while  the  chapel- 
bells  were  ringing. 

There  is  no  doubt,  now,  that  Joan  believed  she  saw  and 
(leard  these  things.  It  is  very  well  known  that  such  delusions 
are  a  disease  which  is  not  by  any  means  uncommon.  It  is 
probable  enough  that  there  were  figures  of  St.  Michael  and  St. 
Catherine  and  St.  Margaret  in  the  little  chapel  (where  they 
would  be  very  likely  to  have  shining  crowns  upon  their  heads), 
and  that  they  first  gave  Joan  the  idea  of  those  three  per-, 
sonages.  She  had  long  been  a  moping,  fanciful  girl ;  and, 
though  she  was  a  very  good  girl,  I  daresay  she  was  a  little  vain, 
and  wishful  for  notoriety. 

Her  father,  something  wiser  than  his  neighbors,  said,  "  I  tell 
thee,  Joan,  it  is  thy  fancy.  Thou  hadst  better  have  a  kind 
husband  to  take  care  of  thee,  girl,  and  work  to  employ  thy 
mind  !  ''  But  Joan  told  him  in  reply,  that  she  had  taken  a  vow 
never  to  have  a  husband,  and  that  she  must  go,  as  Heaven 
directed  her,  to  help  the  dauphin. 

It  happened,  unfortunately  for  her  father's  persuasions,  and 
most  unfortunately  for  the  poor  girl  too,  that  a  party  of  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH. 


179 


dauphin's  enemies  found  their  way  into  the  village,  while  Joan's 
disorder  was  at  this  point,  and  burnt  the  chapel,  and  drove  out 
the  inhabitants.  The  cruelties  she  saw  committed,  touched 
Joan's  heart,  and  made  her  worse.  She  said  that  the  voices 
and  the  figures  were  now  continually  with  her  ,  that  they  told 
her  she  was  the  girl  who,  accordmg  to  an  old  prophecy,  was  to 
deliver  France,  and  she  must  go  and  help  the  dauphin,  and 
must  remain  with  him  until  he  should  be  crowned  at  Rheims ; 
and  that  she  must  travel  a  long  way  lo  a  certain  lord,  named 
Baudricourt,  who  could,  and  would,  bring  her  into  the  dauphin's 
presence. 

As  her  father  still  said,  "  I  tell  thee,  Joan,  it  is  thy  fancy," 
she  set  off  lo  find  out  this  lord,  accompanied  by  an  uncle,  a 
poor  village  wheelwright  and  cart-maker,  who  believed  in  the 
reality  of  her  visions.  They  travelled  a  long  v.ay,  and  went  on 
and  on,  over  a  rough  country,  lull  of  the  Duke  ol  Burgundy's 
men,  and  of  all  kinds  of  robbers  and  marauders,  until  they  came 
to  where  this  lord  was. 

When  his  servants  told  him  that  there  was  a  poor  peasant- 
girl  named  Joan  ol  Arc,  accompanied  by  nobody  but  an  old 
village  wheelwught  and  cart-maker,  who  wished  to  see  him,  be- 
cause she  was  commanded  to  help  the  dauphin  and  save 
France,  Baudricourt,  burst  out  a  laughing,  and  bade  them  send 
the  girl  away.  But  he  soon  heard  so  much  about  her  lingering 
in  the  town,  and  praying  in  the  churches,  and  seeing  visions, 
and  doing  harm  to  no  one,  that  he  sent  for  her  and  questioned 
her.  As  she  said  the  same  things  after  she  had  been  well 
sprinkled  with  holy  water  as  she  had  said  before  the  sprinkling, 
Baudricourt  began  to  think  there  might  be  something  in  it. 
At  all  events,  he  thought  it  worth  while  to  send  her  on  to  the 
town  of  Chinon,  where  the  dauphin  was.  So  he  bought  her  a 
horse,  and  a  sword,  and  gave  her  two  squires  to  conduct  her. 
As  the  voices  had  told  Joan  that  she  was  to  wear  a  man's  dress, 
now  she  put  one  on,  and  girded  her  sword  to  her  side,  and 
bound  spurs  to  her  heels,  and  mounted  her  horse,  and  rode 
away  with  her  two  squires.  As  to  her  uncle,  the  wheelwright, 
he  stood  staring  at  his  niece  in  wonder  until  she  was  out  of 
sight, — as  well  he  might, — and  then  went  home  again.  The 
best  place  too. 

Joan  and  her  two  squires  rode  on  and  on,  until  they  came 
to  Chinon,  where  she  was,  after  some  doubt,  admitted  into  the 
dauphin's  presence.  Picking  him  out  immediately  from  all  his 
court,  she  told  him  that  she  came  commanded  by  Heaven  to 
subdue  his  enemies,  and   conduct   him   to  his  coronation  at 


iSo  A  CIlILnS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Rheims.  She  also  told  him  (or  he  pretended  so  afterwards,  to 
make  the  greater  impression  upon  lus  soldiers)  a  number  of  his 
secrets  known  only  to  himself,  and  furthermore,  she  said  there 
was  an  old,  old  sword  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Catherine  at 
Fierbois,  marked  with  five  old  crosses  on  the  blade,  which  St. 
Catherine  had  ordered  her  to  wear. 

Now  nobody  knew  anything  about  this  old,  old  sword  ;  but 
when  the  cathedral  came  to  be  examined,  which  was  im- 
mediately done,  there,  sure  enough,  the  sword  was  found  ! 
The  dauphin  then  required  a  number  of  grave  priests  and 
bishops  to  give  him  their  opinion  whether  the  girl  derived  her 
power  from  good  spirits  or  from  evil  spirits  ,  which  they  held 
prodigiously  long  debates  about,  in  the  course  of  which  several 
learned  men  fell  fast  asleep,  and  snored  loudly.  At  last,  when 
one  gruff  old  gentleman  had  said  to  Joan,  "What  language  do 
your  voices  speak  !  '  and  when  Joan  had  replied  to  the  gruff 
old  gentleman,  "  A  pleasanter  language  than  yours,"  they  agreed 
that  it  was  all  correct,  and  that  Joan  of  Arc  was  inspired  from 
Heaven  This  wonderiul  circumstance  put  new  heart  into  the 
dauphin's  soldiers  when  they  heard  ol  it,  and  dispirited  the 
English  army,  who  took  Joan  for  a  witch. 

So  Joan  mounted  horse  again,  and  again  rode  on  and  on, 
until  she  came  to  Orleans.  But  she  rode  now  as  never  peasant- 
girl  had  ridden  yet.  She  rode  upon  a  white  war-horse,  in  a 
suit  of  glittering  armor,  with  the  old,  old  sword  from  the 
cathedral,  newly  burnished,  in  her  belt  ,  with  a  white  flag 
carried  before  her  upon  which  were  a  picture  of  God,  and  the 
words  Jesus  Maria.  In  this  splendid  state,  at  the  head  of  a 
great  body  of  troops  escorting  provisions  of  all  kinds  for  the 
starving  inhabitants  of  Orleans,  she  appeared  before  that  be- 
leaguered city. 

When  the  people  on  the  walls  beheld  her,  they  cried  out, 
"  The  Maid  is  come !  the  Maid  of  the  prophecy  is  come  to  de- 
liver us  !  "  And  this,  and  the  sight  of  the  Maid  fighting  at  the 
head  of  their  men,  made  the  French  so  bold,  and  made  the 
English  so  tearful,  that  the  English  line  of  forts  was  soon 
broken,  the  troops  and  provisions  were  got  into  the  town,  and 
Orleans  was  saved. 

Joan,  henceforth  called  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  remained 
within  the  walls  for  a  few  days,  and  caused  letters  to  be  thrown 
over,  ordering  Lord  Suffolk  and  his  Englishmen  to  depart  from 
before  the  town  according  to  the  will  of  Heaven  As  the  Eng- 
lish general  very  positively  declined  to  believe  that  Joan  knew 
anything  about  the  will  of  Heaven  (which  did  not  mend  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  i8i 

matter  with  his  soldiers  ;  for  they  stupidly  said  if  she  were  not 
inspired  she  was  a  witch,  and  it  was  of  no  use  to  fight  against  a 
witch),  she  mounted  her  white  war-horse  again,  and  ordered 
her  white  banner  to  advance. 

The  besiegers  held  the  bridge,  and  some  strong  towers  upon 
the  bridge ;  and  here  the  Maid  of  Orleans  attacked  them 
The  fight  was  fourteen  hours  long.  She  planted  a  scaling 
ladder  with  her  own  hands,  and  mounted  a  tower-wall,  but  was 
struck  by  an  English  arrow  in  the  neck,  and  fell  into  the  trench 
She  was  carried  away,  and  the  arrow  was  taken  out,  during  which 
operation  she  screamed  and  cried  with  the  pain,  as  any  ocher 
girl  might  have  done  ;  but  presently  she  said  that  the  voices 
were  speaking  to  her,  and  soothing  her  to  rest.  After  a  while 
she  got  up,  and  was  again  foremost  in  the  fight  When  the 
English,  who  had  seen  her  fall  and  supposed  her  dead,  saw 
this,  thev  were  tioubled  w'th  the  strangest  fears  ,  and  some  of 
them  cried  out  that  they  beheld  St.  Michael  on  a  whir.e  horse 
(probably  Joan  herself)  fighting  for  the  French  They  lost  the 
bridge,  and  lost  the  towers,  and  next  day  set  their  chain  of  forts 
on  fiie,  and  left  the  place 

But  as  Lord  Suffolk  himself  retired  no  farther  than  the 
town  of  Jargeau,  which  was  only  a  few  miles  off,  the  Maid  of 
Orleans  "besieged  him  there,  and  he  was  taken  prisoner.  As 
the  white  banner  scaled  the  wall,  she  was  struck  upon  the  head 
with  a  stone,  and  was  again  tumbled  down  into  the  ditch  ;  but 
she  only  cried  all  the  more,  as  she  lay  there,  "  On,  on,  my 
countrymen!  and  fear  nothing;  for  the  Lord  hath  delivered 
them  into  our  hands  !  "  After  this  new  success  of  the  Maid's, 
several  other  fortresses  and  places  which  had  previously  held 
out  against  the  dauphin  were  delivered  up  without  a  battle ; 
and  at  Patay  she  defeated  the  remainder  of  the  English  army, 
and  set  up  her  victorious  white  banner  on  a  field  where  twelve 
hundred  Englishmen  lay  dead. 

She  now  urged  the  dauphin  (who  always  kept  out  of  the 
way  when  there  was  any  lighting)  to  proceed  to  Rheims,  as  the 
first  part  of  her  mission  was  accomplished  ;  and  to  complete 
the  whole  by  being  crowned  there.  The  dauphin  was  in  no 
particular  hurry  to  do  this,  as  Rheims  was  a  long  way  off",  and 
the  English  and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  were  still  strong  in  the 
country  through  which  the  road  lay.  However,  they  set  forth, 
with  ten  thousand  men,  and  again  the  Maid  of  Orleans  rode 
on  and  on,  upon  her  white  war-horse,  and  in  her  shining  armor. 
Whenever  they  came  to  a  town  which  yielded  readily,  the  sol- 
diers believed  in  her;  but  whenever  they  came  to  a  town  which 


ySl  A  CHILD'S  HrSTORY  OF  ElVGLAND. 

gave  them  any  trouble,  ihey  began  to  murmur  that  she  was  an 
impostor.  The  latter  was  particularly  the  case  at  I'royes,  which 
finally  yielded,  however,  through  the  persuasion  of  one  Richard, 
a  friar  of  the  place.  Friar  Richard  was  in  the  old  doubt  about 
the  Maid  of  Orleans,  until  he  had  sprinkled  her  well  with  the  holy 
water,  and  had  also  well  sprinkled  the  threshold  of  the  gate  by 
which  she  came  into  the  city.  Finding  that  it  made  no  change 
in  her  or  the  gate,  he  said,  as  the  other  grave  old  gentlemen 
had  said,  that  it  was  all  right,  and  became  her  great  ally. 

So  at  last,  by  dint  of  riding  on  and  on,  the  Maid  of  Orleans, 
and  the  dauphin,  and  the  ten  thousand  sometimes  believing 
and  sometimes  unbelieving  men,  came  to  Rheims.  And  in  the 
great  Cathedral  of  Rheims  the  dauphin  actually  was  crowned 
Charles  the  Seventh  in  a  great  assembly  of  the  people.  Then 
the  Maid,  who,  with  her  white  banner,  stood  beside  the  king  in 
that  hour  of  his  triumph,  kneeled  down  upon  the  pavement  at 
his  feet,  and  said,  with  tears,  that  what  she  had  been  inspired 
to  do  was  done,  and  that  the  only  recompense  she  asked  for  was, 
that  she  should  now  have  leave  to  go  back  to  her  distant  home, 
and  her  sturdily  incredulous  father,  and  her  first  simple  escort, 
the  village  wheelwright  and  cart-maker.  But  the  king  said, 
"  No  !  "  and  made  her  and  her  family  as  noble  as  a  king  could, 
and  settled  upon  her  the  income  of  a  count. 

Ah !  happy  had  it  been  for  the  Maid  of  Orleans,  if  she  had 
resumed  her  rustic  dress  that  day,  and  had  gone  home  to  the 
little  chapel  and  the  wild  hills,  and  had  forgotten  all  these 
things,  and  had  been  a  good  man's  wife,  and  had  heard  no 
stranger  voices  than  the  voices  of  little  children  \ 

It  was  not  to  be ;  and  she  continued  helping  the  king  (she 
did  a  world  for  him,  in  alliance  with  Friar  Richard),  and  trying 
to  improve  the  lives  of  the  coarse  soldiers,  and  leading  a  relig- 
ious, an  unselfish,  and  a  modest  life  herself,  beyond  any  doubt. 
Still,  many  times  she  prayed  the  king  to  let  her  go  home  ;  and 
once  she  even  took  off  her  bright  armor,  and  hung  it  up  in  a 
church,  meaning  never  to  wear  it  more.  But  the  king  always 
•won  her  back  again, — while  she  was  of  any  use  to  him ;  and  so 
she  went  on,  and  on,  and  on  to  her  doom. 

When  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who  was  a  very  able  man,  be- 
gan to  be  active  for  England,  and  by  bringing  the  war  back  into 
France,  and  by  holding  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  to  his  faith,  to 
distress  and  disturb  Charles  very  much,  Charles  sometimes 
asked  the  Maid  of  Orleans  what  the  voices  said  about  it  ? 
But  the  voices  had  become  (very  like  ordinary  voices  in  per- 
plexed times)  contradictory  and  confused,  so  that  now  they  said 


ENGL^N-D  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH. 


183 


one  thing,  and  now  said  another,  and  the  Maid  lost  credit  every 
day.  Charles  marched  on  Paris,  which  was  opposed  to  him, 
and  attacked  the  suburb  of  St.  Honore.  In  this  fight,  being 
again  struck  down  into  the  ditch,  she  was  abandoned  by  the 
whole  army.  She  lay  unaided  among  a  heap  of  dead,  and 
crawled  out  how  she  could.  Then  some  of  her  believers  went 
over  to  an  opposition  maid,  Catherine  of  La  Rochelle,  who 
said  she  was  inspired  to  tell  where  there  were  treasures  of 
buried  money, — though  she  never  did  ;  and  then  Joan  acci- 
dentally broke  the  old,  old  sword,  and  others  said  that  her 
power  was  broken  with  it.  Finally,  at  the  siege  of  Compiegne, 
held  by  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  where  she  did  valiant  service, 
she  was  basely  left  alone  in  a  retreat,  though  facmg  about  and 
fighting  to  the  last ;  and  an  archer  pulled  her  off  her  horse. 

O  the  uproar  that  was  made,  and  the  thanksgivings  that  were 
sung,  about  the  capture  of  this  one  poor  country  girl  !  0  the  way 
in  which  she  was  demanded  to  be  tried  for  sorcery  and  heresy, 
and  anything  else  you  like,  by  the  Inquisitor-General  of  France, 
and  by  this  great  man,  and  by  that  great  man,  until  it  is  weari- 
some to  think  of !  She  was  bought  at  last  by  the  Bishop  of 
Beauvais  for  ten  thousand  francs,  and  was  shut  up  in  her  narrow 
prison, — plain  Joan  of  Arc  again,  and  Maid  of  Orleans  no  more. 

t  should  never  have  done  if  I  were  to  tell  you  how  they  had 
Joan  out  to  examine  her,  and  cross-examine  her,  and  re- 
examine her,  and  worry  her  into  saying  anything  and  every- 
thing ;  and  how  all  sorts  of  scholars  and  doctors  bestowed 
their  utmost  tediousness  upon  her.  Sixteen  times  she  was 
brought  out  and  shut  up  again,  and  worried  and  entrapped 
and  argued  with,  until  she  was  heart-sick  of  the  dreary  business. 
On  the  last  occasion  of  this  kind  she  was  brought  into  a  burial- 
place  at  Rouen,  dismally  decorated  wdth  a  scaffold  and  a  stake 
and  fagots,  and  the  executioner,  and  a  pulpit  with  a  friar  therein, 
and  an  awful  sermon  ready.  It  is  very  affecting  to  know  that 
even  at  that  pass  the  poor  girl  honored  the  mean  vermin  of  a 
king,  who  had  so  used  her  for  his  purposes  and  so  abandoned 
her ;  and  that,  while  she  had  been  regardless  of  reproaches 
heaped  upon  herself,  she  spoke  out  courageously  for  him. 

It  was  natural  in  one  so  young  to  hold  to  life.  To  save  her 
life,  she  signed  a  declaration  prepared  for  her, — signed  it  with 
a  cross,  for  she  couldn't  write, — that  all  her  visions  and  voices 
had  come  from  the  Devil.  Upon  her  recanting  the  past,  and 
protesting  that  she  would  never  wear  a  man's  dress  in  future, 
she  was  condemned  to  imprisonment  for  life,  "  on  the  bread  of 
sorrow  and  the  water  of  affliction." 


lS4  ^  CHILHS  HTSTOR  Y  OF  ENGLA.VD. 

But  on  the  bread  of  sorrow  and  the  water  of  affliction,  the 
visions  and  the  voices  soon  returned  It  was  quite  natural  that 
they  should  do  so ;  for  that  kind  of  disease  is  much  aggravated 
by  fasting,  loneliness,  and  anxiety  of  mind.  It  was  not  only 
got  out  of  Joan  that  she  considered  herself  inspired  again,  but 
she  was  taken  in  a  man's  dress,  which  had  been  left — to  entrap 
her — in  her  prison,  and  which  she  put  on,  in  her  solitude  ;  per- 
haps in  remembrance  of  her  past  glories,  perhaps  because  the 
imaginary  voices  told  her.  For  this  relapse  into  the  sorcery 
and  heresy  and  anything  else  you  like,  she  was  sentenced  to  be 
burnt  to  death.  And  in  the  market-place  of  Rouen,  in  the 
hideous  dress  which  the  monks  had  invented  for  such  specta- 
cles, with  priests  and  bishops  sitting  in  a  gallery  looking  on, — 
though  some  had  the  Christian  grace  to  go  away,  unable  to  en- 
dure the  infamous  scene, — the  shrieking  girl,  last  seen  amidst 
the  smoke  and  fire  holding  a  crucifix  between  her  hands,  last 
heard  calling  upon  Christy  was  burnt  to  ashes.  They  threw  her 
ashes  in  the  river  Seine ;  but  they  will  rise  against  her  mur- 
derers on  the  last  day. 

From  the  moment  of  her  capture,  neither  the  French  king 
nor  one  single  man  in  all  his  court  raised  a  finger  to  save  her. 
It  is  no  defence  of  them  that  they  may  have  never  really  be- 
lieved in  her,  or  that  they  may  have  won  her  victories  by  their 
skill  and  bravery.  The  more  they  pretended  to  believe  in  her, 
the  more  they  had  caused  her  to  believe  in  herself ;  and  she 
had  ever  been  true  to  them,  ever  brave,  ever  nobly  devoted. 
But  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  who  v/ere  in  all  things  false  to 
themselves,  false  to  one  another,  false  to  their  country,  false  to 
Heaven,  false  to  earth,  should  be  monsters  of  ingratitude  and 
treachery  to  a  helpless  peasant-girl. 

In  the  picturesque  old  town  of  Rouen,  where  weeds  and 
grass  grow  high  on  the  cathedral  towers,  and  the  venerable 
Norman  streets  are  still  warm  in  the  blessed  sunlight,  though 
the  monkish  fires  that  once  gleamed  horribly  upon  them  have 
long  grown  cold,  there  is  a  statue  of  Joan  of  Arc,  in  the  scene 
of  her  last  agony,  the  square  to  which  she  has  given  its  present 
name.  I  know  some  statues  of  modern  times — even  in  the 
world's  metropolis,  I  think  —  which  commemorate  less  con- 
stancy, less  earnestness,  smaller  claims  upon  the  world's  atten- 
tion, and  much  greater  impostors. 

Part  the  Third. 

Bad  deeds  seldom  prosper,  happily  for  mankind  ;  and  tho 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH.  185 

English  cause  gained  no  advantage  from  the  cruel  death  of 
Joan  of  Arc.  For  a  long  time  the  war  went  heavily  on.  The 
Duke  of  Bedford  died,  the  alliance  with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy 
was  broken,  and  Lord  Talbot  became  a  great  general  on  the 
English  side  in  France.  But  two  of  the  consequences  of  wars 
are,  famine,  because  the  people  cannot  peacefully  cultivate  the 
ground,  and  pestilence,  which  comes  of  want,  misery  and  suf- 
fering. Both  these  horrors  broke  out  in  both  countries,  and  lasted 
for  two  wretched  years.  Tiien  the  war  went  on  again,  and  came 
by  slow  degrees  to  be  so  badly  conducted  by  the  English  gov- 
ernment, that,  within  twenty  years  from  the  execution  of  the 
Maid  of  Orleans,  of  all  the  great  French  conquests,  the  town 
of  Calais  alone  remained  in  English  hands. 

While  these  victories  and  defeats  were  taking  place  in  the 
course  of  time,  many  strange  things  happened  at  home.  The 
young  king,  as  he  grew  up,  proved  to  be  very  unlike  his  great 
rather,  and  showed  himself  a  miserable,  puny  creature.  There 
was  no  harm  in  him.  He  had  a  great  aversion  to  shedding  blood, 
which  was  something  ;  but  he  was  a  weak,  silly,  helpless  young 
man,  and  a  mere  shuttlecock  to  the  great  lordly  battledores 
about  the  court. 

Of  these  battledores,  Cardinal  Beaufort,  a  relation  of  the  king, 
and  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  were  at  first  the  most  powerful. 
The  Duke  of  Gloucester  had  a  wife  who  was  nonsensically  ac- 
cused of  practising  witchcraft  to  cause  the  king's  death  and 
lead  to  her  husband's  coming  to  the  throne,  he  being  the  next 
heir.  She  was  charged  with  having,  by  the  help  of  a  ridiculous 
woman  named  Margery  (who  was  called  a  witch),  made  a  little 
waxen  doll  in  the  king's  likeness,  and  put  it  before  a  slow  fire 
that  it  might  gradually  melt  away.  It  was  supposed,  in  such 
cases,  that  the  death  of  the  person  whom  the  doll  was  made  to 
represent  was  sure  to  happen.  Whether  the  duchess  was  as 
ignorant  as  the  rest  of  them,  and  really  did  make  such  a  doll 
with  such  an  intention,  I  don't  know  ;  but  you  and  I  know  very 
well  that  she  might  have  made  a  thousand  dolls,  if  she  had  been 
stupid  enough,  and  might  have  melted  them  all  without  hurting 
the  king  or  anybody  else.  However,  she  was  tried  for  it,  and  so 
was  old  Margery,  and  so  was  one  of  the  duke's  chaplains,  who 
was  charged  with  having  assisted  them.  Both  he  and  Margery 
were  put  to  death  ;  and  the  duchess,  after  being  taken  on  foot, 
and  bearing  a  lighted  candle  three  times  round  the  city,  as  a 
penance,  was  imprisoned  for  life.  The  duke  himself  took  all 
this  pretty  quietly,  and  made  as  little  stir  about  the  matter  as 
if  he  were  rather  glad  to  be  rid  of  the  duchess. 


i86  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

But  he  was  not  destined  to  keep  himself  out  of  trouble  long. 
The  royal  shuttlecock  being  three-and-twenty,  the  battledores 
were  very  anxious  to  get  him  married.  The  Duke  of  Gloucester 
wanted  him  to  marry  a  daughter  of  the  Count  of  Armagnac  ; 
but  the  cardinal  and  the  Earl  of  Suffolk  were  all  for  Margaret, 
the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Sicily,  who  they  knew  was  a  res- 
olute, ambitious  woman,  and  would  govern  the  king  as  she 
chose.  To  make  friends  with  this  lady,  the  Earl  of  Suffolk, 
who  went  over  to  arrange  the  match,  consented  to  accept  her 
for  the  kmg's  wife  without  any  fortune,  and  even  to  give  up  the 
two  most  valuable  possessions  England  then  had  in  France. 
So  the  marriage  was  arranged,  on  terms  very  advantageous  to 
the  lady  ;  and  Lord  Suffolk  brought  her  to  England,  and  she 
was  married  at  Westminster.  On  what  pretence  this  queen  and 
her  party  charged  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  with  high  treason 
within  a  couple  of  years,  it  is  impossible  to  make  out,  the  matter 
IS  so  confused  ;  but  they  pretended  that  the  kmg's  life  was  in 
danger,  and  they  took  the  duke  prisoner.  A  fortnight  after- 
wards, he  was  found  dead  In  bed  (they  said) ;  and  his  body 
was  shown  to  the  people,  and  Lord  Suffolk  came  in  for  the  best 
part  ot  his  estates.  You  know  by  this  time  how  strangely  liable 
state  prisoners  were  to  sudden  death. 

If  Cardinal  Beaufort  had  any  hand  in  this  matter,  it  did  him 
no  good  3  tor  he  died  within  six  weeks,  thinking  it  very  hard 
and  curious — at  eighty  years  old  ! — that  he  could  not  live  to 
be  pope. 

This  was  the  time  when  England  had  completed  her  loss  of 
all  her  great  French  conquests.  The  people  charged  the  loss 
principally  upon  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  now  a  duke,  who  had  made 
those  easy  terms  about  the  royal  marriage,  and  who,  they  be- 
liev^ed,  had  even  been  bought  by  France,  So  he  w^as  impeached 
as  a  traitor,  on  a  great  number  of  charges,  but  chiefly  on  ac- 
cusations of  having  aided  the  French  king,  and  of  designing  to 
make  his  own  son  king  of  England.  The  commons  and  the 
people  being  violent  against  him,  the  king  was  made  (by  his 
friends)  to  interpose  to  save  him.  by  banishing  him  for  five 
years,  and  proroguing  the  parliament.  The  duke  had  much 
ado  to  escape  from  a  London  mob,  two  thousand  strong,  who 
lay  in  wait  for  him  in  St.  Giles's  Fields  ;  but  he  got  down  to 
his  own  estates  in  Suffolk,  and  sailed  away  from  Ipswich. 
Sailing  across  the  Channel,  he  sent  into  Calais  to  know  if  he 
might  land  there  ;  but  they  kept  his  boat  and  men  in  the  harbor, 
until  an  English  ship,  carrying  a  hundred  and  fifty  men,  and 
called  "  Nicholas  of  the  Tower,"  came  alongside  his  little  vesself 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  187 

and  ordered  him  on  board.  "  Welcome,  traitor,  as  men  say,"  was 
the  captam's  grim  and  not  very  respectful  salutation.  He  was 
kept  on  board,  a  prisoner,  for  eight-and-forty  hours,  and  then 
a  small  boat  appeared  rowing  toward  the  ship.  As  this  boat 
came  nearer,  it  was  seen  to  have  in  it  a  block,  a  rusty  sword,  and 
an  executioner  m  a  black  mask.  The  duke  was  handed  down  into 
it,  and  there  his  head  was  cut  off  with  six  strokes  of  the  rusty 
sword.  Then  the  little  boat  rowed  away  to  Dover  Beach,  where 
the  body  was  cast  out  and  left  until  the  duchess  claimed  it.  By 
whom,  high  in  authority,  this  murder  was  committed,  has  never 
appeared      No  one  was  ever  punished  for  it. 

There  now  arose  in  Kent  an  Irishman  who  gave  himself  the 
name  of  Mortimer,  but  whose  real  name  was  Jack  Cade  Jack, 
in  imitation  of  Wat  Tyler,  though  he  was  a  very  different  and 
inferior  sort  of  man,  addressed  the  Kentish  men  upon  their 
wrongs,  occasioned  by  the  bad  government  of  England,  among 
so  many  battledores  and  such  a  poor  shuttlecock  ;  and  the 
Kentish  men  rose  up  to  the  number  of  twenty  thousand  Their 
place  of  assembly  was  Blackheath,  where,  headed  by  Jack,  they 
put  forth  two  papers,  which  they  called  "  The  Complaint  of 
the  Commons  of  Kent,"  and  "  The  Requests  of  the  Captain 
of  the  Great  Assembly  in  Kent."  They  then  retired  to  Seven 
oaks.  The  Royal  army  coming  up  with  them  here,  they  beat 
it,  and  killed  their  general.  Then  Jack  dressed  himself  in  the 
dead  general's  armor  and  led  his  men  to  London. 

Jack  passed  into  the  city  from  Southwark,  over  the  bridge, 
and  entered  it  in  triumph,  giving  the  strictest  orders  to  his  men 
not  to  plunder.  Having  made  a  show  of  his  forces  there  while 
the  citizens  looked  on  quietly,  he  went  back  into  Southwark  in 
good  order,  and  passed  the  night.  Next  day  he  came  again, 
having  got  hold  in  the  mean  time  of  Lord  Say,  an  unpopular 
nobleman.  Says  Jack  to  the  lord  mayor  and  judges,  "  Will  you 
be  so  good  as  to  make  a  tribunal  in  Guildhall,  and  try  me  this 
nobleman  ? "  The  court  being  hastily  made,  he  was  found 
guilty ;  and  Jack  and  his  men  cut  his  head  off  on  Cornhill. 
They  also  cut  off  the  head  of  his  son-in-law,  and  then  went  back 
in  good  order  to  Southwark  again. 

But  although  the  citizens  could  bear  the  beheading  of  an 
unpopular  lord,  they  could  not  bear  to  have  their  houses  pil- 
laged. And  it  did  so  happen,  that  Jack,  after  dinner, — per- 
haps he  had  drunk  a  little  too  much, — began  to  plunder  the 
house  where  he  lodged ;  upon  which,  of  course,  his  men  began 
to  imitate  him.  Wherefore  the  Londoners  took  counsel  with 
Lord  Scales,  who  had  a  thousand  soldiers  in   the  Tower,  and 


1 88  ^  CHTLD'S  HTSTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

defended  London  Bridge,  and  kept  Jack  and  his  people  out 
This  advantage  gained,  it  was  resolved  by  divers  great  men  to 
divide  Jack's  army  in  the  old  way  by  making  a  great  many 
promises,  on  behalf  of  the  state,  that  were  never  intended  to  be 
performed.  This  did  divide  them  ;  some  of  Jack's  men  saying 
that  they  ought  to  take  the  conditions  which  were  offered,  and 
others  saying  that  they  ought  not,  for  they  were  only  a  snare  , 
some  going  home  at  once  ;  others  staying  where  they  were  ; 
and  all  doubting  and  quarrelling  among  themselves. 

Jack,  who  was  in  two  minds  about  fighting  or  accepting  a 
pardon,  and  who  indeed  did  both,  saw  at  last  that  there  was 
nothing  to  expect  from  his  men,  and  that  it  was  very  likely 
some  of  them  would  deliver  him  up,  and  get  a  reward  of  a 
thousand  marks,  which  was  offered  for  his  apprehension.  So 
after  they  had  travelled  and  quarrelled  all  the  way  from  South- 
wark  to  Blackheath,  and  from  Blackheath  to  Rochester,  he 
mounted  a  good  horse,  and  galloped  away  into  Sussex.  But 
there  galloped  after  him,  on  a  better  horse,  one  Alexander  Iden, 
who  came  up  with  him,  had  a  hard  fight  with  him,  and  killed 
him.  Jack's  head  was  set  aloft  on  London  Bridge,  with  the 
face  looking  towards  Blackheath,  Vvhere  he  had  raised  his  flag ; 
and  Alexander  Iden  got  the  thousand  marks. 

It  is  supposed  by  some  that  the  Duke  of  York,  who  had 
been  removed  from  a  high  post  abroad  through  the  queen's  in- 
fluence, and  sent  out  of  the  way  to  govern  Ireland,  was  at  the 
bottom  of  this  rising  of  Jack  and  his  men,  because  he  wanted 
to  trouble  the  government,  He  claimed  (though  not  yet  pub' 
licly)  to  have  a  better  right  to  the  throne  than  Henry  of  Lan- 
caster, as  one  of  the  family  of  the  Earl  of  March,  whom  Henry 
the  Fourth  had  set  aside.  Touching  this  claim,  which,  being 
through  female  relationship,  was  not  according  to  the  usual 
descent,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  Henry  the  Fourth  was  the 
free  choice  of  the  people  and  the  parliament,  and  that  his  fam- 
ily had  now  reigned  undisputed  for  sixty  years.  The  memory 
of  Henry  the  Fifth  was  so  famous,  and  the  English  people  loved 
it  so  much,  that  the  Duke  of  York's  claim  would,  perhaps, 
never  have  been  thought  of  (it  would  have  been  so  hopeless)  but 
for  the  unfortunate  circumstance  of  the  present  king's  being  by 
this  time  quite  an  idiot,  and  the  country  very  ill-governed. 
These  two  circumstances  gave  the  Duke  of  York  a  power  he 
could  not  otherwise  have  had. 

Whether  the  duke  knew  anything  of  Jack  Cade,  or  not,  he 
came  over  from  Ireland  while  Jack's  head  was  on  London 
Bridge  ;  being  secretly  advised  that  the  aueen  was  setting  up 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH.  189 

his  enemy,  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  against  him.  He  went  to 
Westminster  at  the  head  of  four  thousand  men,  and  on  his 
knees  before  the  king,  represented  to  liim  the  bad  state  of  the 
country,  and  petitioned  him  to  summon  a  parliament  to  consider 
it.  This  the  king  promised.  When  the  parliament  was  sum- 
moned, the  Duke  of  York  accused  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  and 
the  Duke  of  Somerset  accused  the  Duke  of  York ;  and,  both 
in  and  out  of  parliament,  the  followers  of  each  party  were  full 
of  violence  and  hatred  towards  the  other.  At  length,  the  Duke 
of  York  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  large  force  of  his  tenants, 
and  in  arms,  demanded  the  reformation  of  the  government. 
Being  shut  out  of  London,  he  encamped  at  Dartford,  and  the 
royal  army  encamped  at  Blackheath.  According  as  either  side 
triumphed,  the  Duke  of  York  was  arrested,  or  the  Duke  of 
Somerset  was  arrested.  The  trouble  ended,  for  the  moment,  in 
the  Duke  of  York  renewing  his  oath  of  allegiance,  and  going  in 
peace  to  one  of  his  own  castles. 

Half  a  year  afterwards  the  queen  gave  birth  to  a  son,  who 
was  very  ill  received  by  the  people,  and  not  believed  to  be 
the  son  of  the  king.  It  shows  the  Duke  of  York  to  have  been 
a  moderate  man,  unwilling  to  involve  England  in  new  troubles, 
that  he  did  not  take  advantage  of  the  general  discontent  at  this 
time,  but  really  acted  for  the  public  good.  He  was  made  a  mem- 
ber of  the  cabinet  ;  and  the  king  being  now  so  much  worse  that  he 
could  not  be  carried  about  and  shown  to  the  people  with  any  de- 
cency, the  duke  was  made  Lord  Protector  of  the  kingdom,  until 
the  king  should  recover,  or  the  prince  should  come  of  age.  At 
the  same  time  the  Duke  of  Somerset  was  committed  to  the 
Tower.  So  now  the  Duke  of  Somerset  was  down,  and  the 
Duke  of  York  was  up.  By  the  end  of  the  year,  however,  the 
king  recovered  his  memory  and  some  spark  of  sense ;  upon 
which  the  queen  used  her  power,  which  recovered  with  him,  to 
get  the  Protector  disgraced,  and  her  favorite  released.  So  now 
the  Duke  of  York  was  down,  and  the  Duke  of  Somerset  was  up. 

These  ducal  ups  and  downs  gradually  separated  the  whole 
nation  into  the  two  parties  of  York  and  Lancaster,  and  led  to 
those  terrible  civil  wars  long  known  as  the  Wars  of  the  Red 
and  White  Roses,  because  the  red  rose  was  the  badge  of  the 
House  of  Lancaster,  and  the  white  rose  was  the  badge  of  the 
House  of  York. 

The  Duke  of  York,  joined  by  some  other  powerful  noblemen 
of  the  White  Rose  party,  and  leading  a  small  army,  met  the 
king  with  another  small  army  at  St.  Alban's,  and  demanded  that 
the  Duke  of  Somerset  should  be  given  up.     The  poor  king,  be- 


I^o  A  CHILUS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

ing  made  to  say  in  answer  that  he  would  sooner  die,  was  in- 
stantly attacked.  The  Duke  of  Somerset  was  killed ;  and  the 
king  himself  was  wounded  in  the  neck,  and  took  refuge  in  the 
house  of  a  poor  tanner.  Whereupon  the  Duke  of  York  went 
to  him,  led  him  with  great  submission  to  the  abbey,  and  said 
he  was  very  sorry  for  what  had  happened.  Having  now  the 
king  in  his  possession,  he  got  a  parliament  summoned,  and  him- 
self once  more  made  Protector,  but  only  for  a  few  months  \ 
for,  on  the  king  getting  a  little  better  again,  the  queen  and  her 
party  got  him  into  their  possession,  and  disgraced  the  duke 
once  more.     So  now  the  Duke  of  York  was  down  again. 

Some  of  the  best  men  in  power,  seeing  the  danger  of  these 
constant  changes,  tried  even  then  to  pi  event  the  Red  and  the 
White  Rose  W^ars.  They  brought  about  a  great  council  in 
London  between  the  two  parties.  The  White  Roses  assembled 
in  Blackfriars,  the  Red  Roses  in  Whitefriars  ;  and  some  good 
priests  communicated  between  them,  and  made  the  proceedings 
known  at  evening  to  the  king  and  the  judges.  They  ended  in 
a  peaceful  agreement  that  there  should  be  no  more  quarrelling  ; 
and  there  was  a  great  royal  procession  to  St.  Paul's,  in  which 
the  queen  walked  arm  in  arm  with  her  old  enemy,  the  Duke 
of  York,  to  show  the  people  how  comfortable  they  all  were. 
This  state  of  peace  lasted  half  a  year,  when  a  dispute  between 
ihe  Earl  of  Warwick  (one  of  the  duke's  powerful  friends)  and 
some  of  the  king's  servants  at  court  led  to  an  attack  upon  that 
^arl, — who  was  a  White  Rose, — and  to  a  sudden  breaking-out 
of  all  old  animosities.  So  here  were  greater  ups  and  downs  than 
ever. 

There  were  even  greater  ups  and  downs  than  these  sook 
after.  After  various  battles,  the  Duke  of  York  fled  to  Ireland, 
and  his  son,  the  Earl  of  March,  to  Calais,  with  their  friends, 
the  Earls  of  Salisbury  and  Warwick  ;  and  a  parliament  was  held 
declaring  them  all  traitors.  Little  the  worse  for  this,  the  Earl 
of  Warwick  presently  came  back,  landed  in  Kent,  was  joined 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  other  powerful  noblemen 
and  gentlemen,  engaged  the  king's  forces  at  Northampton,  sig- 
nally defeated  them,  and  took  the  king  himself  prisoner,  who 
was  found  in  his  tent.  Warwick  would  have  been  glad,  I  dare- 
say, to  have  taken  the  queen  and  prince  too  ;  but  they  escaped 
into  Wales,  and  thence  into  Scotland. 

The  king  was  carried  by  the  victorious  force  straight  to 
London,  and  made  to  call  a  new  parliament,  which  immediately 
declared  that  the  Duke  of  York  and  those  other  noblemen 
were  not  traitors,  but  excellent  subjects.     Then  back  comes 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SIXTH.  15 1 

the  duke  from  Ireland  at  the  head  of  five  hundred  horsemen, 
rides  from  London  to  Westminster,  and  enters  the  House  of 
Lords.  There  he  laid  his  hand  upon  the  cloth  of  gold  which 
covered  the  empty  thrOne,  as  if  he  had  half  a  mind  to  sit  down 
in  it;  but  he  did  not.  On  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ask- 
ing him  if  he  would  visit  the  king,  who  was  in  his  palace  close 
by,  he  replied,  "  I  know  no  one  in  this  country,  my  lord,  who 
ought  not  to  visit  w^."  None  of  the  lords  present  spoke  a 
single  word  ;  so  the  duke  went  out  as  he  had  come  in,  estab- 
lished himself  royally  in  the  king's  palace,  and,  six  days  after- 
wards, sent  in  to  the  lords  a  formal  statement  of  his  claim  to 
the  throne.  The  lords  went  to  the  king  on  this  momentous  sub- 
ject ;.and  after  a  great  deal  of  discussion,  in  which  the  judges  and 
the  other  law-ofBcers  were  afraid  to  give  an  opinion  on  either 
side,  the  question  was  compromised.  It  was  agreed  that  the 
present  king  should  retain  the  crown,  for  his  life,  and  that  it 
should  then  pass  to  the  Duke  of  York  and  his  heirs. 

But  the  resolute  queen,  determined  on  asserting  her  son's 
right,  would  hear  of  no  such  thing.  She  came  from  Scotland 
to  the  north  of  England,  where  several  powerful  lords  armed  in 
her  cause.  The  Duke  of  York,  for  his  part,  set  off  with  some 
five  thousand  men,  a  little  time  before  Christmas  day,  1460,  to 
give  her  battle.  He  lodged  at  Sandal  Castle,  near  Wakefield  ; 
and  the  Red  Rose  defied  him  to  come  out  on  Wakefield  Green, 
and  fight  them  then  and  there.  His  generals  said  he  had  best 
wait  until  his  galbnt  son,  the  Earl  of  March,  came  up  with  his 
power ;  but  he  w  is  determined  to  accept  the  challenge.  He 
did  so  in  an  evil  hour.  He  was  hotly  pressed  on  all  sides, 
two  thousand  of  his  men  lay  dead  on  Wakefield  Green,  and  he 
himself  was  taken  prisoner.  They  set  him  down  in  mock  state 
on  an  ant-hill,  and  twisted  grass  about  his  head,  and  pretended 
to  pay  court  to  him  on  their  knees,  saying,  "  O  King  !  without 
a  kingdom,  and  Prince !  without  a  people,  we  hope  your  gra- 
cious Majesty  is  very  well  and  happy."  They  did  worse  than 
this  ;  they  cut  his  head  off,  and  handed  it  on  a  pole  to  the 
queen,  who  laughed  with  delight  when  she  saw  it,  (you  recol- 
lect their  walking  so  religiously  and  comfortably  to  St.  Paul's  !) 
and  had  it  fixed,  with  a  paper  crown  upon  its  head,  on  the 
walls  of  York.  The  Earl  of  Salisbury  lost  his  head  too  ;  and 
the  Duke  of  York's  second  son,  a  handsome  boy,  who  was  fly- 
ing with  his  tutor  over  Wakefield  Bridge,  was  stabbed  in  the 
heart  by  a  murderous  lord, — Lord  ClilTord  by  name, — whose 
father  had  been  killed  by  the  White  Roses  in  the  fight  at  St. 
Alban's.     There  was  awful  sacrifice  of  life  in  this  battle  \  for 


192  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

no  quarter  was  given,  and  the  queen  was  wild  for  revenge. 
When  men  unnaturally  fight  against  their  own  countrymen, 
they  are  always  observed  to  be  more  unnaturally  cruel  and 
filled  with  rage  than  they  are  against  any  other  enemy. 

But  Lord  Ciiflord  had  stabbed  the  second  son  of  the  Duke 
of  York,  not  the  first.  The  eldest  son,  Edward,  Earl  of  March, 
was  at  Gloucester;  and,  vowing  vengeance  for  the  death  of  his 
father,  his  brother,  and  their  faithful  friends,  he  began  to  march 
against  the  queen.  He  had  to  turn  and  fight  a  great  body  of 
Welsh  and  Irish  first,  who  worried  his  advance.  These  he  de- 
feated in  a  great  fight  at  Mortimer's  Cross,  near  Hereford, 
where  he  beheaded  a  number  of  the  Red  Roses  taken  in  battle, 
in  retaliation  for  the  beheading  of  the  White  Roses  at  Wake- 
field. The  queen  had  the  next  turn  of  beheading.  Having 
moved  towards  London,  and  falling  in,  between  St.  Alban's 
and  Barnet,  with  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and  the  Duke  of  Nor- 
folk, White  Roses  both,  who  were  there  with  an  army  to  oppose 
her,  and  had  got  the  king  with  them,  she  defeated  them  with 
great  loss,  and  struck  off  the  heads  of  two  prisoners  of  note, 
who  were  in  the  king's  tent  with  him,  and  to  whom  the  king  had 
promised  his  protection.  Her  triumph,  however,  was  very 
short.  She  had  no  treasure,  and  her  army  subsisted  by  plun- 
der. This  caused  them  to  be  hated  and  dreaded  by  the  peo- 
ple, and  particularly  by  the  London  people,  who  were  wealthy. 
As  soon  as  the  Londoners  heard  that  Edward,  Earl  of  March, 
united  with  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  was  advancing  towards  the  city, 
they  refused  to  send  the  queen  supplies,  and  made  a  great  re- 
joicing. 

The  queen  and  her  men  retreated  with  all  speed ;  and 
Edward  and  Warwick  came  on,  greeted  with  loud  acclamations 
on  every  side.  The  courage,  beauty,  and  virtues  of  young 
Edward  could  not  be  sufficiently  praised  by  the  whole  people. 
He  rode  into  London  like  a  conqueror,  and  met  with  an  en- 
thusiastic welcome.  A  few  days  afterwards.  Lord  Falconbridge 
and  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  assembled  the  citizens  in  St.  John's 
Field,  Clerkenwell,  and  asked  them  if  they  would  have  Henry 
of  Lancaster  for  their  king  .'*  To  this  they  all  roared,  "  No, 
no,  no  !  "  and  "  King  Edward  !  King  Edward  !  "  Then,  said 
those  noblemen,  would  they  love  and  serve  young  Edward  t 
To  this  they  all  cried,  "  Yes,  yes  !  "  and  threw  up  their  caps, 
and  clapped  their  hands,  and  cheered  tremendously. 

Therefore  it  was  declared,  that,  by  joining  the  queen,  and 
not  protecting  those  two  prisoners  of  note,  Henry  of  Lancaster 
had  forfeited  the  crown  ;  and  Edward  of  York  was  proclaimed 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FOURTH.  193 

king.  He  made  a  great  speech  to  the  applauding  people  at 
Westminster,  and  sat  down  as  sovereign  of  England  on  that 
throne,  on  the  golden  covering  of  which  his  father — worthy 
of  a  better  fate  than  the  bloody  axe  which  cut  the  thread  of 
so  many  lives  in  England,  through  so  many  years — had  laid 
his  hand. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

ENGLAND    UNDER    EDWARD    THE    FOURTH. 

King  Edward  the  Fourth  was  not  quite  twenty-one 
years  of  age  when  he  took  that  unquiet  seat  upon  the  throne 
of  England.  The  Lancaster  party,  the  Red  Roses,  were 
then  assembling  in  great  numbers  near  York,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  give  them  battle  instantly.  But  the  stout  Ear" 
of  Warwick,  leading  for  the  young  king,  and  the  young  king 
himself  closely  following  him,  and  the  English  people  crowd- 
ing round  the  royal  standard,  the  White  and  the  Red  Roses 
met,  on  a  wild  March  day,  when  the  snow  was  falling  heavily, 
at  Towton;  and  there  such  a  furious  battle  raged  between 
them  that  the  total  loss  amounted  to  forty  thousand  men — 
all  Englishmen,  fighting  upon  English  ground,  against  one 
another.  The  young  king  gained  the  day,  took  down  the 
heads  of  his  father  and  brother  from  the  walls  of  York,  and 
put  up  the  heads  of  some  of  the  most  famous  noblemen  en- 
gaged in  the  battle  on  the  other  side.  Then  he  went  to 
London,  and  was  crowned  with  great  splendor. 

A  new  parliament  met.  No  fewer  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  of  the  principal  noblemen  and  gentlemen  on  the  Lan- 
caster side  were  declared  traitors;  and  the  king,  who  had 
very  little  humanity,  though  he  was  handsome  in  person 
and  agreeable  in  manner,  resolved  to  do  all  he  could  to 
pluck  up  the  Red  Rose^  root  and  branch. 

Queen  Margaret,  hcwever,  was  still  active  for  her  young 
son.  She  obtained  heip  from  Scotland  and  from  Normandy, 
and  took  several  important  English  castles.  But  W^arwick 
soon  retook  them;  the  queen  lost  all  her  treasure  on  board 
ship  in  a  great  storm ;  and  both  she  and  her  son  suffered  great 
misfortunes.     Once  in  tiie  winter  weather,  as  they  were  riding 


194  A  CHILD'S  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  ENGLAND. 

through  a  forest,  they  were  attacked  and  plundered  by  a  party 
of  robbers  ,  and  when  they  had  escaped  from  these  men,  and 
were  passing  alone  and  on  foot  through  a  thick,  dark  part  of  the 
wood  they  came,  all  at  once,  upon  another  robber.  So  the 
queen,  with  a  stout  heart,  took  the  little  prince  by  the  hand, 
and  going  straight  up  to  that  robber,  said  to  him,  "  My  friend, 
this  is  the  youngest  son  of  your  lawful  king !  I  confide  him  to 
your  care."  The  robber  was  surprised,  but  took  the  boy  in 
his  arms,  and  faithfully  restored  him  and  his  mother  to  their 
friends.  In  the  end,  the  queen's  soldiers  being  beaten  and 
dispersed,  she  went  abroad  again,  and  kept  quiet  for  the 
present. 

Now,  all  this  time,  the  deposed  King  Henry  was  concealed 
by  a  Welsh  knight,  who  kept  him  close  in  his  castle.  But 
next  year  the  Lancaster  party  recovering  their  spirits,  raised 
a  large  body  of  men,  and  called  him  out  of  his  retirement  to 
put  him  at  their  head.  They  v;ere  joined  by  some  powerful 
noblemen  who  had  sworn  fidelity  to  the  new  king,  but  who 
were  ready,  as  usual,  to  break  their  oaths  whenever  they 
thought  there  was  anything  to  be  got  by  it.  One  of  the  worst 
things  in  the  history  of  the  war  of  the  Red  and  White  Roses  is 
the  ease  with  which  these  noblemen,  who  should  have  set  an 
example  of  honor  to  the  people,  left  either  side  as  they  took 
slight  ofifence,  or  were  disappointed  in  their  greedy  expecta- 
tions and  joined  the  other.  Well,  Warwick's  brother  soon 
beat  the  Lancastrians  ;  and  the  false  noblemen  being  taken, 
were  beheaded  without  a  moment's  loss  of  time.  The  deposed 
king  had  a  narrow  escape ;  three  of  his  servants  were  taken  ; 
and  one  of  them  bore  his  cap  of  estate,  which  was  set  with 
pearls,  and  embroidered  with  two  golden  crowns.  However, 
the  head  to  which  the  cap  belonged  got  safely  into  Lancashire, 
and  lay  pretty  quietly  there  (the  people  in  the  secret  being 
very  true)  for  more  than  a  year.  At  length  an  old  monk  gave 
such  intelligence  as  led  to  Henry's  being  taken  while  he  was 
sitting  at  dinner  in  a  place  called  Wadington  Hall.  He  was 
immediately  sent  to  London,  and  met  at  Islington  by  the  Earl 
of  Warwick,  by  whose  directions  he  was  put  upon  a  horse  with 
his  legs  tied  under  it,  and  paraded  three  times  round  the  pil- 
lory. Then  he  was  carried  off  to  the  Tower,  where  they 
treated  him  well  enough. 

The  White  Rose  being  so  triumphant,  the  young  king 
abandoned  himself  entirely  to  pleasure,  and  led  a  jovial  life. 
But  thorns  were  springing  up  under  his  bed  of  roses,  as  he 
soon  found  out ;  for  having  been  privately  married  to  Elizabeth 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FOURTH,         195 

V/oodville,  a  young  widow  lady,  very  beautiful  and  very  cap- 
tivating, and  at  last  resolving  to  make  his  secret  known  and 
to  declare  her  his  queen,  he  gave  some  offence  to  the  Earl  of 
Warwick,  who  was  usually  called  the  Kingmaker,  because  of 
jjis  power  and  influence,  and  because  of  his  having  lent 
such  great  help  to  placing  Edward  on  the  throne.  This  of- 
fence was  not  lessened  by  the  jealousy  with  which  the 
Nevil  family  (the  Earl  of  Warwick's)  regarded  the  promo- 
lion  of  the  Woodville  family.  For  the  young  queen  was  so 
bent  on  providing  for  her  relations,  that  she  made  her 
tather  an  earl  and  a  great  officer  of  state,  married  hei  five 
sisters  to  young  noblemen  of  the  highest  rank,  and  provided 
/or  her  younger  brother,  a  young  man  of  twenty,  by  marrying 
him  to  an  immensely  rich  old  duchess  of  eighty.  The  Earl  of 
U'arwick  took  all  this  preity  graciously  for  a  man  of  his  proud 
temper,  until  the  question  arose  to  whom  the  king's  sister, 
Margaret,  should  be  married.  The  Earl  of  Warwick  said, 
-'  To  one  of  the  French  king's  sons,"  and  was  allowed  to  go 
over  to  the  French  king  to  make  friendly  proposals  for  that 
purpose,  and  to  hold  all  manner  of  friendly  interviews  with  him. 
But  while  he  was  so  engaged,  the  Woodville  party  married  the 
young  lady  to  the  Duke  of  Burgundy.  Upon  this  he  came 
back  in  great  rage  and  scorn,  and  shut  himself  up  discontented 
in  his  castle  at  Middleham. 

A  reconciliation,  though  not  a  very  sincere  one,  was  patched 
up  between  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and  the  king,  and  lasted  until 
the  earl  married  his  daughter,  against  the  king's  wishes,  to  the 
Duke  of  Clarence.  While  the  marriage  was  being  celebrated 
at  Calais,  the  people  in  the  north  of  England,  where  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Nevil  family  was  strongest,  broke  out  into  re- 
bellion ;  their  complaint  was,  that  England  was  oppressed  and 
plundered  by  the  Woodville  family,  whom  they  demanded  to 
have  removed  from  power.  As  they  were  joined  by  great  num- 
bers of  people,  and  as  they  openly  declared  that  they  were  sup- 
ported by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  the  king  did  not  know  what  to 
do.  At  last,  as  he  wrote  to  the  earl  beseeching  his  aid,  Is 
and  his  new  son-in-law  came  over  to  England,  and  began  to 
arrange  the  business  by  shutting  the  king  up  in  Middleham 
Castle  in  the  safe  keeping  of  the  Archbishop  of  York;  so 
England  was  not  only  in  the  strange  position  of  having  two 
kings  at  once,  but  they  were  both  prisoners  £t  the  same  time. 

Even  as  yet,  however,  the  Kingmaker  w?.*3  so  far  true  to  the 
king,  that  he  dispersed  a  new  rising  of  the  Lancastrians,  took 
their  leader  prisoner,  and  brought  him  to  the  king,  "jvho  or* 


196  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  UF  ENGLAND. 

deredhimtobe  immediately  executed.  He  presently  allowed 
the  king  to  return  to  London,  and  there  innumerable  pledges 
of  forgivenness  and  friendship  were  exchanged  between  them, 
and  between  the  Nevils  and  the  Woodvilles  ;  the  king's  eldest 
daughter  was  promised  in  marriage  to  the  heir  of  the  Nevil 
family  ,  and  more  friendly  oaths  were  sworn,  and  more  friendly 
proTiises  made,  than  this  book  would  hold. 

They  lasted  about  three  months.  At  the  end  of  that  time, 
the  Archbishop  of  York  made  a  feast  for  the  king,  the  Earl  of 
Waiwick  and  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  at  his  house,  the  Moor, 
in  Hertfordshire.  The  king  was  washing  his  hands  before 
supper,  when  some  one  whispered  him  that  a  body  of  a  hun- 
dred men  were  lying  in  ambush  outside  the  house.  Whether 
this  were  true  or  untrue,  the  king  took  fright  mounted  his 
horse,  and  rode  through  the  dark  night  to  Windsor  Castle. 
Another  reconciliation  was  patched  up  between  him  and  the 
Kingmaker ;  but  it  was  a  short  one,  and  it  was  the  last.  A 
new  rising  took  place  in  Lincolnshire,  and  the  king  marched 
to  repress  it.  Having  done  so,  he  proclaimed  that  both  the 
Earl  of  Warwick  and  the  Duke  of  Clarence  were  traitors,  who 
had  secretly  assisted  it,  and  who  had  been  prepared  publicly 
to  join  it  on  the  following  day.  In  these  dangerous  circum- 
tances,  they  both  took  ship  and  away  to  the  French  court. 

And  here  a  meeting  took  place  between  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick and  his  old  enemy,  the  Dowager  Queen  Margaret,  through 
whom  his  father  had  had  his  head  struck  off,  and  to  whom  he 
had  been  a  bitter  foe.  But  now,  when  he  said  that  he  had 
done  with  the  ungrateful  and  perfidious  Edward  of  York,  and 
that  henceforth  he  devoted  himself  to  the  restoration  of  the 
House  of  Lancaster,  either  in  the  person  of  her  husband  or  of 
her  little  son,  she  embraced  him  as  if  he  had  ever  been  her 
dearest  friend.  She  did  more  than  that  \  she  married  her  son 
to  his  second  daughter,  the  Lady  Anne.  However  agreeable 
ihis  marriage  was  to  the  new  friends,  it  was  very  disagreeable  to 
the  Duke  of  Clarence,  who  perceived  that  his  father-in-law,  the 
Kingmaker,  would  never  make  him  king  now.  So,  being  but  a 
weak-minded  young  traitor,  possessed  of  very  little  worth  or 
sense,  he  readily  listened  to  an  artful  court-lady  sent  over  for 
the  purpose,  and  promised  to  turn  traitor  once  more,  and  go 
over  to  his  brother.  King  Edward,  when  a  fitting  opportunity 
should  come. 

The  Earl  of  Warwick,  knowing  nothing  of  this,  soon  re- 
deemed his  promise  to  the  Dowager  Queen  Margaret,  by 
invading  England,  and  landing  at  Plymouth,  where  he  instantly 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FOURTH.         197 

proclaimed  King  Henry,  and  summoned  all  Englishmen  be- 
tween the  ages  of  sixteen  and  sixty  to  join  his  banner.  Then  with 
his  army  increasing  as  he  marched  along,  he  went  northward, 
and  came  so  near  King  Edward,  who  was  in  that  part  of  the 
country,  that  Edward  had  to  ride  hard  for  it  to  the  coast  of 
Norfolk,  and  thence  to  get  away,  in  such  ships  as  he  could  find, 
to  Holland,  Thereupon  the  triumphant  Kingmaker  and  his 
false  son-in-law,  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  went  to  London,  took 
the  old  king  out  of  the  Tower,  and  walked  him  in  a  great  pro- 
cession to  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  with  the  crown  upon  his  head. 
This  did  not  improve  the  temper  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  who 
saw  himself  farther  off  from  being  king  than  ever  \  but  he  kept 
his  secret,  and  said  nothing.  The  Nevil  family  were  restored 
to  all  their  honors  and  glories,  and  the  VVoodvilles  and  the  rest 
were  disgraced.  The  Kingmaker,  less  sanguinary  than  the 
king,  shed  no  blood  except  that  of  the  Earl  of  Worcester,  who 
had  been  so  cruel  to  the  people  as  to  have  gained  the  title  of  the 
Butcher.  Him  they  caught  hidden  in  a  tree,  and  him  they 
tried  and  executed.  No  other  death  stained  the  Kingmaker's 
triumph. 

To  dispute  this  triumpli,  back  came  King  Edward  again, 
next  year,  landing  at  Ravenspur,  coming  on  to  York,  causing 
all  his  men  to  cry  "  Long  live  King  Henry  I  "  and  swearing  on 
the  altar,  without  a  blush,  that  he  came  to  lay  no  claim  to  the 
Crown.  Now  was  the  time  for  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  who 
ordered  his  men  to  assume  the  White  Rose,  and  declare  for  his 
brother.  The  Marquis  of  Montague,  though  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick's brother,  also  declining  to  fight  King  Edward,  he  went 
on  successfully  to  London,  where  the  Archbishop  of  York  let 
him  into  the  city,  and  where  the  people  made  great  demonstra- 
tions hi  his  favor.  For  this  they  had  four  reasons.  Firstly, 
there  were  great  numbers  of  the  king's  adherents  hiding  in 
the  city  and  ready  to  break  out ;  secondly,  the  king  owed 
them  a  great  deal  of  money,  which  they  could  never  hope 
to  get  if  he  were  unsuccessful ;  thirdly,  there  was  a  3'oung 
prince  to  inherit  the  crown ;  and  fourthly,  the  king  was  gay 
and  handsome,  and  more  popular  than  a  better  man  might 
have  been  with  the  city  ladies.  After  a  stay  of  only  two  days 
with  these  worthy  supporters,  the  king  marched  out  to  Barnet 
Common  to  give  the  Earl  of  Warwick  battle.  And  now  it  was 
*-2  be  seen,  for  the  last  time,  whether  the  king  or  the  King- 
maker was  to  carry  the  day. 

While  the  battle  was  yet  pending,  the  faint-hearted  Duke  of 
Clarence  be^an  to  repent^  and  sent  over  secret  messages  to  his 


igS  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAh^D.      ' 

father-in-law,  offering  his  services  in  mediation  with  the  king- 
But  the  Earl  of  Warwick  disdainfully  rejected  them,  and  re- 
plied that  Clarence  was  false  and  perjured,  and  that  he  would 
settle  the  quarrel  by  the  sword.  The  battle  began  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  lasted  until  ten  ;  and  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  it  was  fought  in  a  thick  mist,  absurdly 
supposed  to  be  raised  by  a  magician.  The  loss  of  life  was  very 
great,  for  the  hatred  was  strong  on  both  sides.  The  Kingmaker 
was  defeated,  and  the  king  triumphed.  Both  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick and  his  brother  were  slain  ;  and  their  bodies  lay  in  St. 
Paul's  for  some  days,  as  a  spectacle  to  the  people. 

Margaret's  spirit  was  not  broken  even  by  this  great  blow. 
Within  five  days  she  was  in  arms  again,  and  raised  her  stand- 
ard in  Bath,  whence  she  set  off  with  her  army  to  try  and  join 
Lord  Pembroke,  who  had  a  force  in  Wales.  But  the  king 
coming  up  with  her  outside  the  town  of  Tewkesbur}%  and  order- 
ing his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  who  was  a  brave 
soldier,  to  attack  her  men,  she  sustained  an  entire  defeat,  and 
was  taken  prisoner,  together  with  her  son,  now  only  eighteen 
years  of  age.  The  conduct  of  the  king  to  this  poor  youth  was 
worthy  of  his  cruel  character.  He  ordered  him  to  be  led  into 
his  tent.  "  And  what,"  said  he,  "  brought  you  to  England  ?  " 
"  I  came  to  England,"  replied  the  prisoner,  with  a  spirit  which 
a  man  of  spirit  might  have  admired  in  a  captive,  "  to  recover 
my  father's  kingdom,  which  descended  to  him  as  his  right,  and 
from  him  descends  to  me  as  mine."  The  king,  drawing  off  his 
iron  gauntlet,  struck  him  with  it  in  the  face  ;  and  the  Duke  of 
Clarence  and  some  other  lords,  who  were  there,  drew  their  noble 
swords  and  killed  him. 

His  mother  survived  him  a  prisoner,  for  five  years  ;  after 
her  ransom  by  the  King  of  France,  she  survived  for  six  years 
more.  Within  three  weeks  of  this  murder,  Henry  died  one  of 
those  convenient  sudden  deaths  which  were  so  common  in  the 
Tower ;  in  plainer  words,  he  was  murdered  by  the  king's 
order. 

Having  no  particular  excitement  on  his  hands  after  this 
great  defeat  of  the  Lancaster  party,  and  being,  perhaps,  desirous 
to  get  rid  of  some  of  his  fat  (for  he  was  now  getting  too  cor- 
pulent to  be  handsome),  the  king  thought  of  making  war  on 
Fra^nce.  As  he  wanted  more  money  for  this  purpose  than  the 
Parliament  could  give  him,  though  they  were  usually  ready 
enough  for  war,  he  invented  a  new  way  of  raising  it,  by  send- 
ing for  the  principal  citizens  of  London,  and  telling  them  with 
a  grave  face  that  he  was  very  much  in  want  of  cash,  and  would 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  7 HE  FOURTH. 


i9§ 


take  it  very  kind  in  them  if  they  would  lend  him  soir.e.  It 
being  impossible  for  them  safely  to  refuse,  they  complied ;  and 
the  moneys  thus  forced  from  them  were  called — no  doubt  to 
the  great  amusement  of  the  king  and  the  court, — as  if  they 
were  free  gifts,  "  benevolences."  What  with  grants  from 
Parliament,  and  what  with  benevolences,  the  king  raised  an 
army,  and  passed  over  to  Calais.  As  nobody  wanted  war,  how- 
ever, the  French  king  made  proposals  of  peace,  which  were 
accepted  ;  and  a  truce  was  concluded  for  seven  long  years. 
The  proceedings  between  the  kings  of  France  and  P^ngland  on 
this  occasion  were  very  friendly,  very  splendid,  and  very  dis- 
trustful. They  finished  with  a  meeting  between  the  two  kings, 
on  a  temporary  bridge  over  the  river  Somme,  where  they  em- 
braced through  two  holes  in  a  strong  wooden  grating,  like  a 
lion's  cage,  and  made  several  bows  and  fine  speeches  to  one 
another. 

It  was  now  time  that  the  Duke  of  Clarence  should  be  pun 
ished  for  his  treacheries  ;  and  Fate  had  his  punishment  in  store. 
He  was,  probably,  not  trusted  by  the  king  \  (for  who  coukLtrust 
him  who  knew  him  ?)  and  he  had  certainly  a  powerful  opponent 
in  his  brother  Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  who  being  avari- 
cious and  ambitious,  wanted  to  marry  that  widowed  daughter 
of  the  Earl  of  War^ ,  ick's  who  had  been  espoused  to  the  de- 
ceased young  prince  at  Calais.  Clarence,  who  wanted  all  the 
family  wealth  for  himself,  secreted  this  lady,  whcTm  Richard 
found  disguised  as  a  servant  in  the  City  of  London,  and  whom 
he  married  \  arbitrators  appointed  by  the  king  then  divided  the 
property  between  the  brothers.  This  led  to  ill-will  and  mis- 
trust between  them.  Clarence's  wife  dying,  and  he  wishing  to 
make  another  marriage  which  was  obnoxious  to  the  king,  his 
ruin  was  hurried  by  that  means  too.  At  first  the  court  struck 
at  his  retainers  and  dependents,  and  accused  some  of  ll.em  of 
magic  and  witchcraft,  and  similar  nonsense.  Successful  against 
this  small  game,  it  then  mounted  to  the  duke  himself,  who  was 
impeached  by  his  brother,  the  king  in  person,  on  a  variety  of 
such  charges.  He  was  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  pub- 
licly executed.  He  never  was  publicly  executed  ;  but  he  met 
his  death  somehow  in  the  Tower,  and,  no  doubt,  through  some 
agency  of  the  king  or  his  brother  Gloucester,  or  both.  It  was 
supposed  at  the  time  that  he  was  told  to  choose  the  manner  of  his 
death,  and  that  he  chose  to  be  drowned  in  a  butt  of  Malmsey 
wine.  I  hope  the  story  may  be  true  \  for  it  would  have  been 
a  becoming  death  for  such  a  miserable  creature. 

The  ku^  survived  him  some  five  years.     He  died  in  the 


200  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

forty-second  year  of  his  life,  and  the  twenty-third  of  his  reign. 
He  had  a  very  good  capacity,  and  some  good  points ;  but  he 
was  selfish,  careless,  sensual,  and  cruel.  He  was  a  favorite 
with  the  people  for  his  showy  manners,  and  the  people  were 
a  good  example  to  him  in  the  constancy  of  their  attachment. 
He  was  penitent  on  his  death-bed,  for  his  "  benevolences  "  and 
other  extortions,  and  ordered  restitution  to  be  made  to  the 
people  who  had  suffered  from  them.  He  also  called  about  his 
bed  the  enriched  members  of  the  Woodville  family,  and  tlie 
proud  lords  whose  honors  were  of  older  date,  and  endeavored 
to  reconcile  them  for  the  sake  of  the  peaceful  succession  of  his 
son,  and  the  tranquillity  of  England. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   EDWARD  THE   FIFTH. 

The  late  king's  eldest  son,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  called  Ed- 
ward, after  him,  was  only  thirteen  years  of  age  at  his  father's 
death.  He  was  at  Ludlow  Castle  with  his  uncle,  the  Earl  of 
Rivers  The  prince's  brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  only  eleven 
years  of  age,  was  in  London  with  his  mother.  The  boldest,  most 
crafty  and  most  dreaded  nobleman  in  England  at  that  time  was 
their  uncle  Richard,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  and  everybody  won- 
dered how  the  two  poor  boys  would  fare  with  such  an  uncle, 
for  a  friend  or  a  foe. 

The  queen  their  mother,  being  exceedingly  uneasy  about 
this,  was  anxious  that  instructions  should  be  .sent  to  Lord  Rivers 
to  raise  an  army  to  escort  the  young  king  safely  to  London. 
But  Lord  Hastings,  who  was  of  the  court  party  opposed  to  the 
Woodvilles,  and  who  disliked  the  thought  of  giving  them  that 
power,  argued  against  the  proposal,  and  obliged  the  queen  to 
be  satisfied  with  an  escort  of  two  thousand  horse.  The  Duke 
of  Gloucester  did  nothing,  at  first,  to  justify  suspicion.  He 
came  from  Scotland  (where  he  was  commanding  an  army)  to 
York,  and  was  there  the  fi^st  to  swear  allegiance  to  his  nephew. 
He  then  wrote  a  condoliL^*  letter  to  the  queen-mother,  and  set 
off  to  be  present  at  the  coronation  in  London. 

Now  the  young  king,  journeying  towards  London  too,  with 
Lord  Rivers  and  Lord  Gray,  came  to  Stony  Stratford  as  his 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FIFTH.  20T 

uncle  came  to  Northampton,  about  ten  miles  distant ;  and 
when  those  two  lords  heard  that  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  was  so 
near,  they  proposed  to  the  young  king  that  they  should  go  back 
and  greet  him  in  his  name.  The  boy  being  very  willing  that 
they  should  do  so ;  they  rode  off  and  were  received  with  great 
friendliness,  and  asked  by  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  to  stay  and 
dine  with  him.  In  the  evening,  while  they  were  merry  together, 
up  came  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  with  three  hundred  horse- 
men ;  and  next  morning  the  two  lords,  and  the  two  dukes,  and 
the  three  hundred  horsemen  rode  away  together  to  rejoin  the 
king.  Just  as  they  were  entering  Stony  Stratford,  the  Duke  of 
Gloucester,  checking  his  horse,  turned  suddenly  on  the  two 
lords,  charged  them  with  alienating  from  him  the  affections  of 
his  sweet  nephew,  and  caused  them  to  be  arrested  by  the  three 
hundred  horsemen  and  taken  back.  Then  he  and  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  went  straight  to  the  king  (whom  they  had  now  in 
their  power),  to  whom  they  made  a  show  of  kneeling  down,  and 
offering  great  love  and  submission  ;  and  then  they  ordered  his 
attendants  to  disperse,  and  took  him,  alone  with  them,  to 
Northampton, 

A  few  days  afterwards  they  conducted  him  to  London,  and 
lodged  him  in  the  bishop's  palace.  But  he  did  not  remain 
there  long,  for  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  with  a  tender  face, 
made  a  speech,  expressing  how  anxious  he  was  for  the  royal 
boy's  safety,  and  how  much  safer  he  would  be  in  the  Tower 
until  his  coronation,  than  he  could  be  anywhere  else.  So  to 
the  Tower  he  was  taken,  very  carefully,  and  the  Duke  of  Glou- 
cester was  named  Protector  of  the  State. 

Although  Gloucester  had  proceeded  thus  far  with  a  very 
smooth  countenance,  and  although  he  was  a  clever  man,  fair 
of  speech,  and  not  ill-looking,  in  spite  of  one  of  his  shoulders 
being  something  higher  than  the  other;  and  although  he  had 
come  into  the  city  riding  bare-headed  at  the  king's  side,  and 
looking  very  fond  of  him, — he  had  made  the  king's  mother  more 
uneasy  yet,  and,  when  the  royal  boy  was  taken  to  the  Tower, 
she  became  so  alarmed,  that  she  took  sanctuary  in  Westminster 
with  her  five  daughters. 

Nor  did  she  do  this  without  reason  ;  for  the  Duke  of  Glou- 
cester, finding  that  the  lords  who  were  opposed  to  the  Woodville 
family  were  faithful  to  the  young  king  nevertheless,  quickly  re- 
solved to  strike  a  blow  for  himself.  Accordingly,  while  those 
lords  met  in  council  at  the  Tower,  he  and  those  who  were  in 
his  interest  met  in  separate  council  at  his  own  residence,  Crosby 
Palace,  in  Bishopsgate  Street.     Being  at  last  quite  prepared. 


202  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

he  one  day  appeared  unexpectedly  at  the  council  in  the  Tower, 
and  appeared  to  be  very  jocular  and  merry.  He  was  particu- 
larly gay  with  the  Bishop  of  Ely  ;  praising  the  strawberries  that 
grew  in  his  garden  on  Holborn  Hill,  and  asking  him  to  have 
some  gathered  that  he  might  eat  them  at  dinner.  The  bishop, 
quite  proud  of  the  honor,  sent  one  of  his  men  to  fetch  some ; 
and  the  duke,  still  very  jocular  and  gay,  went  out,  and  the 
council  all  said  what  a  very  ageeeable  duke  he  was  !  In  a 
little  time,  however,  he  came  back  quite  altered  ;  not  at  all 
jocular,  frowning  and  fierce,  and  suddenly  said, — 

"  What  do  those  persons  deserve  who  have  compassed  my 
destruction  ;  I  being  the  king's  lawful,  as  well  as  natural,  pro- 
tector ? " 

To  this  strange  question  Lord  Hastings  replied,  that  they 
deserved  death,  whosoever  they  were. 

"Then,"  said  the  duke,  "  I  tell  5^ou  that  they  are  the  sor 
ceress  my  brother's  wife,"  meaning  the  queen,  "  and  that  other 
sorceress,  Jane  Shore, — who,  by  witchcraft,  have  withered  my 
body,  and  caused  my  arm  to  shrink  as  I  now  show  you." 

He  then  puHed  up  his  sleeve,  and  showed  them  his  arm, 
which  was  shrunken,  it  is  true,  but  which  had  been  so,  as  they 
all  very  well  knew,  from  the  hour  of  his  birth. 

Jane  Shore,  being  then  the  lover  of  Lord  Hastings,  as  she 
had  formerly  been  of  the  late  king,  that  lord  knew  that  he  him- 
self was  attacked.  So  he  said,  in  some  confusion,  "  Certainly, 
my  lord,  if  they  have  done  this,  they  be  worthy  of  punishment." 

"If  }  "  said  the  Duke  of  Gloucester.  "  Do  you  talk  to  me 
of  ifs  ?  I  tell  you  that  they  have  so  done  ;  and  I  will  make  it 
good  upon  thy  body,  thou  traitor  !  " 

With  that  he  struck  the  table  a  great  blow  with  his  fist.  This 
was  a  signal  to  some  of  his  people  outside  to  cry,  "  Treason  !  " 
They  immediately  did  so,  and  there  was  a  rush  into  the  chamber 
of  so  many  armed  men  that  it  was  filled  in  a  moment, 
i  "  First,"  said  the  Duke  of  Gloucester  to  Lord  Hastings,  "  I 
arrest  thee,  traitor  !  And  let  him,"  he  added  to  the  armed  men 
who  took  him,  "  have  a  priest  at  once  ;  for,  by  St.  Paul,  I  will 
not  dine  until  I  have  seen  his  head  off !  " 

Lord  Hastings  was  hurried  to  the  green  by  the  Tower  chapel, 
and  there  beheaded  on  a  log  of  wood  that  happened  to  be  lying 
on  the  ground.  Then  the  duke  dined  with  a  good  appetite  ;  and 
after  dinner,  summoning  the  principal  citizens  to  attend  him, 
told  them  that  Lord  Hastings,  and  the  rest,  had  designed  to 
murder  both  himself  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  who  stood 
by  his  side,  if  he  had  not  providentially  discovered  their  design. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  FTFTH. 


203 


He  requested  them  to  be  so  obliging  as  to  inform  their  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  truth  of  what  he  said,  and  issued  aproclama'^.on 
(prepared  and  neatly  copied  out  beforehand)  to  the  same 
effect. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  duke  did  these  things  in  the 
Tower,  Sir  Richard  Ratcliffe,  the  boldest  and  most  undaunted 
of  men,  went  down  to  Pontefract,  arrested  Lord  Rivers,  Lord 
Gray,  and  two  other  gentlemen,  and  publicly  executed  them 
on  the  scaffold,  without  any  trial,  for  having  intended  the 
duke's  death.  Three  days  afterwards,  the  duke,  not  to  lose 
time,  went  down  the  river  to  Westminster  in  his  barge,  attended 
by  divers  bishops,  lords,  and  soldiers,  and  demanded  that  the 
queen  should  deliver  her  second  son,  the  Duke  of  York,  into 
his  safe-keeping.  The  queen,  being  obliged  to  comply,  resigned 
the  child  after  she  had  wept  over  him  ,  and  Richard  of  Glou- 
cester placed  him  with  his  brother  in  the  Tower.  Then  he 
siezed  Jane  Shore  ;  and,  because  she  had  been  the  lover  of 
the  late  king,  confiscated  her  property,  and  got  her  sentenced 
to  do  public  penance  in  the  streets,  by  walking  in  a  scanty 
dress,  with  bare  feet,  and  carrying  a  lighted  candle,  to  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  through  the  most  crowded  part  of  the  city. 

Having  now  all  things  ready  for  his  own  advancement,  he 
caused  a  friar  to  preach  a  sermon  at  the  cross  which  stood  in 
front  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  in  which  he  dwelt  upon  the  prof- 
ligate manners  of  the  late  king,  and  upon  the  l^te  shame  of 
Jane  Shore,  and  hinted  that  the  princes  were  not  his  children. 
"  Whereas,  good  people,'  said  the  friar,  whose  name  was 
Shaw,  "  my  Lord  the  Protector,  the  noble  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
that  sweet  prince,  the  pattern  of  all  the  noblest  virtues,  is  the 
perfect  image  and  express  likness  of  his  father."  There  had 
been  a  little  plot  between  the  duke  and  the  friar,  that  the  duke 
should  appear  in  the  crowd  at  this  moment,  when  it  was  ex- 
pected that  the  people  would  cry,  "Long  live  King  Richard  !  " 
But  either  through  the  friar  saying  the  words  too  soon,  or 
through  the  duke's  coming  too  late,  the  duke  and  the  words 
did  not  come  together,  and  the  people  only  laughed,  and  the 
friar  sneaked  off  ashamed. 

The  Duke  of  Buckingham  was  a  better  hand  at  such  busi- 
ness than  the  friar  ;  so  he  went  to  the  Guildhall  the  next  day, 
and  addressed  the  citizens  in  the  Lord  Protector's  behalf.  A 
few  dirty  men  who  had  been  hired  and  stationed  there  for  the 
purpose,  crying,  when  he  had  done,  "  God  save  King  Richard  !  " 
he  made  them  a  great  bow,  and  thanked  them  with  all  his  heart. 
Next  day,  to  make  an  end  of  it,  he  went  with  the  mayor  and 


204  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAN-u. 

some  lorcv^  and  citizens  to  Bayard  Castle,  by  tlie  river,  where 
Richard  then  was,  and  read  an  address,  humbly  entreating  him 
to  accept  the  crown  of  England  Richard,  who  looked  down 
upon  them  "out  of  a  window,  and  pretended  to  be  in  great  un- 
easiness and  alarm,  assured  them  their  was  nothing  he  desired 
less,  and  that  his  deep  affection  for  his  nephews  forbade  him 
to  think  of  it.  To  this  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  replied,  with 
pretended  warmth,  that  the  free  people  of  England  would 
never  submit  to  his  nephew's  rule  ,  and  that  if  Richard,  who 
was  the  lawful  heir,  refused  the  crown,  why  then  they  must 
find  some  one  else  to  wear  it.  The  Duke  of  Gloucester  re- 
turned, that  since  he  used  that  strong  language,  it  became  his 
painful  duty  to  think  no  more  of  himself,  and  to  accept  the 
crown. 

Upon  that  the  people  cheered  and  dispersed  ;  and  the 
Duke  of  Gloucester  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  passed  a 
pleasant  evening,  talking  over  the  play  they  had  just  acted  with 
so  much  success,  and  every  word  of  which  they  had  prepared 
together. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   RICHARD    THE  THIRD. 

King  Richard  the  Third  was  up  betimes  in  the  morn- 
ing and  went  to  Westminster  Hall.  In  the  hall  was  a  marble 
seat,  upon  which  he  sat  himself  down  between  two  great  noble- 
men, and  told  the  people  that  he  began  the  new  reign  in  that 
place,  because  the  first  duty  of  a  sovereign  was  to  administer 
the  laws  equally  to  all,  and  to  maintain  justice.  He  tlien 
mounted  his  horse,  and  rode  back  to  the  city,  where  he  was 
received  by  the  clergy  and  the  crowd  as  if  he  really  had  a  right 
to  the  throne,  and  really  were  a  just  man.  The  clergy  and  the 
crowd  must  have  been  rather  ashamed  of  themselves  in  secret, 
I  think,  for  being  such  poor-spirited  knaves. 

The  new  king  and  his  queen  were  soon  crowned  with  a 
great  deal  of  show  and  noise,  which  the  people  liked  very  much  ; 
and  then  the  king  set  forth  on  a  royal  progress  through  his 
dominions.  He  was  crowned  a  second  time  at  York,  in  order 
that  the  people  might  have  show  and  noise  enough  :  and  wher- 
#»ver  he  went  was  received  with  shouts  of  rejoicing, — from  a 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  THIRD. 


205 


good  many  people  of  strong  lungs,  who  were  paid  to  strain 
their  throats  in  crying,  "  God  save  King  Richard  !  "  The 
plan  was  so  successful,  that  I  am  told  it  has  been  imitated 
since,  by  other  usurpers,  in  other  progresses  through  other 
dominions. 

While  he  was  on  this  journey,  King  Richard  stayed  a  week 
at  Warwick.  And  from  Warwick  he  sent  instructions  home 
for  one  of  the  wickedest  murders  that  ever  was  done, — the 
murder  of  the  two  young  princes,  his  nephews,  who  were  shut 
up  in  the  Tower  of  London. 

Sir  Robert  Brackenbury  was  at  that  time  Governor  of  the 
Tower.     To  him,  by  the  hands  of  a  messenger  named  John 
Green,  did  King   Richard  send  a  letter,  ordering  him  by  some 
means  to  put  the  two  young  princes  to  death.     But  Sir  Robert 
— I  hope  because  he  had  children  of  his  own,  and  loved  them — 
sent  John  Green  back   again,  riding   and   spurring   along  the 
dusty  roads,  with  the  answer  that  he  could  not  do  so  horrible 
a  piece  of  work.     The   king,  having  frowningly  considered  a 
little,  called  to  him  Sir  Jame.s  Tyrrel,  his  master  of  the  horse, 
and   gave    him    authority   to    take    command    of   the    Tower, 
whenever  he  would,  for  twenty-four  hours,  and  to  keep  all  the 
keys  of  the  Tower  during  that  space  of    time.     Tyrrel,  well 
knowing  what  was  wanted,  looked  about  him  for  two  hardened 
ruffians,  and  chose  John  Dighton,  one  of  his  own  grooms,  and 
Miles  Forest,  who  was  a  murderer  by  trade.     Having  secured 
these   two  assistants,  he  went  upon   a  day  in   August  to  the 
Tower,  showed  his  authority  from  the  king,  took  the  command 
for  four  and  twenty  hours,  and  obtained  possession  of  the  keys. 
And  when  the  black   night  came,  he  went  creeping,  creeping, 
like  a  guilty  villain    as  he   was,  up   the  dark    stone  winding 
stairs,  and  along  the  dark  stone  passages,  until  he  came  to  the 
door  of  the   room  where   the  two  young  princes,  having  said 
their  prayers,  lay  fast   asleep,  clasped  in  each  other's  arms. 
And,  while   he   watched  and   listened  at  the   door,  he  sent  in 
those   evil   demons,    John    Dighton   and   Miles   Forest,   wlu- 
smothered  the  two  princes  with   the  bed  and  pillows,  and  car- 
ried their  bodies  down   the   stairs,  and  buried  them   under  a 
great  heap  of  stones  at  the  staircase  foot.     And,  when  the  day 
came,  he  gave  up  the  command  of  the  Tower,  and  restored  the 
keys,  and  hurried  away  without  once  looking  behind  him  ;  and 
Sir  Robert  Brackenbury  went  with  fear  and  sadness   to   the 
princes'  room,  and  found  the  princes  gone  forever. 

You  know  through  all   this  history,  how  true  it  is  that  trai- 
tors are  never  true ;  and  you  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that 


2o6  -*  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

the  Duke  of  Buckingham  soon  turned  against  King  Richard, 
and  joined  a  great  conspiracy  that  was  formed  to  dethrone  him, 
and  to  place  the  crown  upon  its  rightful  owner's  head.  Rich- 
ard had  meant  to  keep  the  murder  secret ;  but  when  he  heard 
through  his  spies  that  this  conspiracy  existed,  and  that  many 
lords  and  gentlemen  drank  in  secret  to  the  healths  of  the  two 
young  princes  in  the  Tower,  he  made  it  known  that  they  were 
dead.  The  conspirators,  though  thwarted  for  a  moment,  soon 
resolved  to  set  up  for  the  crown,  against  the  murderous  Rich- 
ard, Henry,  Earl  of  Richmond,  grandson  of  Catherine,  that 
widow  of  Henry  the  Fifth  who  married  Owen  Tudor.  And,  as 
Henry  was  of  the  house  of  Lancaster,  they  proposed  that  he 
should  marry  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the 
late  king,  now  the  heiress  of  the  house  of  York,  and  thus,  by 
uniting  the  rival  families,  put  an  end  to  the  fatal  wars  of  the 
Red  and  White. Roses.  AH  being  settled,  a  time  was  appointed 
for  Henry  to  come  over  from  Brittany,  and  for  a  great  rising 
against  Richard  to  take  place  in  several  parts  of  England  at 
the  same  hour.  On  a  certain  day,  therefore,  in  October,  the 
revolt  took  place  ;  but  unsuccessfully.  Richard  was  prepared. 
Henry  was  driven  back  at  sea  by  a  storm,  his  followers  in  Eng- 
land were  dispersed,  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  was  taken, 
and  at  once  beheaded  in  the  market-place  at  Salisbury. 

The  time  of  his  success  was  a  good  time,  Richard  thought, 
for  summoning  a  parliament,  and  getting  some  money.  So  a 
parliament  was  called  ;  and  it  flattered  and  fawned  upon  him 
as  much  as  he  could  possibly  desire,  and  declared  him  to  be 
the  rightful  king  of  England,  and  his  only  son,  Edward,  then 
eleven  years  of  age,  the  next  heir  to  the  throne. 

Richard  knew  full  well,  that,  let  the  Parliameiit  say  what  it 
would,  the  Princess  Elizabeth  was  remembered  by  people  as 
the  heiress  of  the  house  of  York  ;  and  having  accurate  informa- 
tion besides,  of  its  being  designed  by  the  conspirators  to  marry 
her  to  Henry  of  Richmond,  he  felt  that  it  would  much 
strengthen  h*.m  and  weaken  them  to  be  beforehand  with  them, 
and  marry  her  to  his  son.  With  this  view  he  went  to  the 
Sanctuary  at  Westminster,  where  the  late  king's  widow  and  her 
daughter  still  were,  and  besought  them  to  come  to  court ;  where 
(he  swore  by  anything  and  everything)  they  should  be  safely 
and  honorably  entertained.  They  came  accordingly  ;  but  had 
scarcely  been  at  court  a  month  when  his  son  died  suddenly, — 
or  was  poisoned, — and  his  plan  was  crushed  to  pieces. 

In  this  extremity  King  Richard,  always  active,  thought,  "  I 
ttiust  make  another  plan."     And  he  made  the  plan  of  mariying 


ENGLAND  UNDER  RICHARD  THE  THIRD.  207 

the  Princess  Eli.zabeth  himself,  although  she  was  his  niece. 
There  was  one  difficulty  in  the  way ;  his  wife,  the  Queen  Anne, 
was  alive.  But  he  knew  (remembering  his  nephews)  how  to 
remove  that  obstacle  ;  and  he  made  love  to  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth, telling  her  he  felt  perfectly  confident  that  the  Queen 
would  die  in  February.  The  Princess  was  not  a  very  scrupu- 
lous young  lady  ;  for,  instead  of  rejecting  the  murderer  of  her 
brothers  with  scorn  and  hatred,  she  openly  declared  she  loved 
him  dearly,  and  when  February  came,  and  the  queen  did  not 
die,  she  expressed  her  impatient  opinion  that  she  was  too  long 
about  it.  However,  King  Richard  was  not  so  far  out  in  his 
prediction  but  that  she  died  in  March, — he  took  good  care  of 
that;  and  then  this  precious  pair  hoped  to  be  married.  But 
they  were  disappointed  \  for  the  idea  of  such  a  marriage  was 
so  unpopular  in  the  countr}^,  that  the  king's  chief  counsellors, 
Ratcliffe  and  Catesby,  would  by  no  means  undertake  to  pro- 
pose it,  and  the  king  was  even  obliged  to  declare  in  public  that 
he  had  never  thought  of  such  a  thing. 

He  was  by  this  time  dreaded  and  hated  by  all  classes  of  his 
subjects.  His  nobles  deserted  every  day  to  Henry's  side  ;  he 
dared  not  call  another  parliament,  lest  his  crimes  should  be 
denounced  there,  and,  for  want  of  money,  he  was  obliged  to 
get  "  benevolences  "  from  the  citizens,  which  exasperated  them 
all  against  him.  It  was  said  too,  that,  being  stricken  by  his 
conscience,  he  dreamed  frightful  dreams,  and  started  up  in  the 
night-time,  wild  with  terror  and  remorse.  Active  to  the  last 
through  all  this,  he  issued  vigorous  proclamations  against 
Henry  of  Richmond  and  all  his  followers,  when  he  heard  that 
they  were  coming  against  him  with  a  fleet  from  France,  and 
took  the  field  as  fierce  and  savage  as  a  wild  boar, — the  animal 
represented  on  his  shield. 

Henry  of  Richmond  landed  with  six  thousand  men  at  Mil- 
ford  Haven,  and  came  on  against  King  Richard,  then  encamped 
at  Leicester  wdth  an  army  twice  as  great,  through  North 
Wales.  On  Bosworth  Field  the  two  armies  met,  and  Richard, 
looking  along  Henry's  ranks,  and  seeing  them  crowded  with 
the  English  nobles  who  had  abandoned  him,  turned  pale 
when  he  beheld  the  powerful  Lord  Stanley  and  his  son 
(whom  he  had  tried  hard  to  retain)  among  them.  But  he 
was  as  brave  as  he  was  wicked,  and  plunged  into  the 
thickest  of  the  fight.  He  was  riding  hither  and  thither, 
i'aying  about  him  in  all  directions,  when  he  observed  the 
Earl  of  Northumberland — one  of  his  few  great  allies — to 
jtand  inactive,  and  the  main  body  of  his  troops  to  hesitate. 


2o8  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

At  the  same  moment,  his  desperate  glance  caught  Henry  ot 
Richmond  among  a  little  group  of  his  knights.  Riding  hard  at 
him,  and  crying,  "  Treason !  "  he  killed  his  standard-bearer, 
fiercely  unhorsed  another  gentlemen,  and  aimed  a  powerful 
stroke  at  Henry  himself,  to  cut  him  down.  But  Sir  William 
Stanley  parried  it  as  it  fell ;  and,  before  Richard  could  raise 
his  arm  again,  he  was  borne  down  in  a  press  of  numbers,  un- 
horsed, and  killed.  Lord  Stanley  picked  up  the  crown,  all 
bruised  and  trampled,  and  stained  with  blood,  and  put  it  upon 
Richmond's  head,  amid  loud  and  rejoicing  cries  of  "  Long  live 
King  Henry ! " 

That  night  a  horse  was  led  up  to  the  Church  of  the  Gray 
Friars  at  Leicester,  across  whose  back  was  tied,  like  some 
worthless  sack,  a  naked  body  brought  there  for  burial.  It  was 
the  body  of  the  last  of  the  Plantagenet  line.  King  Richard  the 
Third,  usurper  and  murderer,  slain  at  the  battle  of  Bosworth 
Field  in  the  thirty-second  year  of  his  age,  after  a  reign  of  two 
years. 


CHAPTER  XXVL 

ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH, 

King  Henry  the  Seventh  did  not  turn  out  to  be  as  fine  a 
fellow  as  the  nobility  and  people  hoped,  in  the  first  joy  of  their 
deliverance  from  Richard  the  Third.  He  was  very  cold,  crafty, 
and  calculating,  and  would  do  almost  anything  for  money.  He 
possessed  considerable  ability,  but  his  chief  merit  appears  to 
have  been  that  he  was  not  cruel  when  there  was  nothing  to  be 
got  by  it. 

The  new  king  had  promised  the  nobles  who  had  espoused 
his  cause  that  he  would  marry  the  Princess  Elizabeth.  The 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  direct  her  to  be  removed  from  the 
castle  of  Sheriff  Hutton  in  Yorkshire,  where  Richard  had 
placed  her,  and  restored  to  the  care  of  her  mother  in  London. 
The  young  Earl  of  Warwick,  Edward  Plantagenet,  son  and  heir  of 
the  late  Duke  of  '-  hirence,  had  been  kept  a  prisoner  in  the  same 
old  Yorkshire  casJe  with  her.  This  boy,  who  was  now  fifteen, 
the  new  king  placed  in  the  Tower  for  safety.  Then  he  came 
to  London  in  great  state,  and  gratified  the  people  with  a  fine 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH.  209 

procession  ;  on  which  kind  of  show  he  often  v^ery  much  relied 
for  keeping  them  in  good  humor.  The  sports  and  feasts  which 
took  place  were  followed  by  a  terrible  fever,  called  the  sweat- 
ing sickness  ;  of  which  great  numbers  of  people  died.  Lord 
mayors  and  aldermen  are  thought  to  have  suffered  most  from 
it ;  whether  because  they  were  in  the  habit  of  over-eating  them- 
selves,or  because  they  were  very  jealous  of  preserving  filth  and 
nuisances  in  the  city  (as  they  have  been  since),  I  don't  know. 

The  king's  coronation  was  postponed  on  account  of  the 
general  ill-health  ;  and  he  afterwards  deferred  his  marriage,  as 
if  he  were  not  very  anxious  that  it  should  take  place  ;  and, 
even  after  that,  deferred  the  queen's  coronation  so  long  that  he 
gave  offence  to  the  York  party.  However,  he  set  these  things 
right  in  the  end,  by  hanging  some  men,  and  seizing  on  the  rich 
possessions  of  others,  by  granting  more  popular  pardons  to  the 
followers  of  the  late  king  than  could  at  first  be  got  from  him  ,• 
and  by  employing  about  his  court  some  not  very  scrupulous 
persons  who  had  been  employed  in  the  previous  reign. 

As  this  reign  was  principally  remarkable  for  two  very  curious 
impostures  which  have  become  famous  in  history,  we  will  make 
those  two  stories  its  principal  feature. 

There  was  a  priest  at  Oxford  of  the  name  of  Simons,  who 
had  for  a  pupil  a  handsome  boy  named  Lambert  Simnel,  the 
son  of  a  baker.  Partly  to  gratify  his  own  ambitious  ends,  and 
partly  to  carry  out  the  designs  of  a  secret  party  formed  against 
the  king,  this  priest  declared  that  his  pupil,  the  boy,  was  nd 
other  than  the  young  Earl  of  Warwick,  who  (as  everybody 
might  have  known)  was  safely  locked  up  in  the  Tower  of  Lon- 
don.  The  priest  and  the  boy  went  over  to  Ireland ;  and  at 
Dublin  enlisted  in  their  cause  all  ranks  of  the  people,  who 
seem  to  have  been  generous  enough,  but  exceedingly  irrational. 
The  Earl  of  Kildare,  the  Governor  of  Ireland,  declared  that  he 
believed  the  boy  to  be  what  the  priest  represented  ;  and  the 
boy,  who  had  been  well  tutored  by  the  priest,  told  them  such 
things  of  his  childhood,  and  gave  them  so  many  descriptions  of 
the  royal  family,  that  they  were  perpetually  shouting  and  hurrah- 
ing, and  drinking  his  health,  and  making  all  kinds  of  noisy  and 
thirsty  demonstrations  to  express  their  belief  in  him.  Nor  was 
this  feeling  confined  to  Ireland  alone  ;  for  the  Earl  of  Lincoln, 
whom  the  late  usurper  had  named  as  his  successor,  went  over 
to  the  young  pretender  ;  and,  after  holding  a  secret  correspond- 
ence with  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  the  sister  of 
Edward  the  Fourth,  who  detested  the  present  king  and  all  his 
race,  sailed  to  Dublin  vvith  two  thousand  German  soldiers  of 


a  10  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

her  providing.  In  this  promising  state  of  the  boy's  fortunes, 
he  was  crowned  there,  with  a  crown  taken  off  the  head  of  a 
statue  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  and  was  then,  according  to  the  Irish 
custom  of  those  days,  carried  home  on  the  shoulders  of  a  big 
chieftain  possessing  a  great  deal  more  strength  than  sense 
Father  Simons,  you  may  be  sure,  was  mighty  busy  at  the  coro- 
nation. 

Ten  days  afterwards,  the  Germans  and  the  Irish,  and  the 
priest  and  the  boy,  and  the  Earl  of  Lincoln,  all  landed  in  Lan- 
cashire to  invade  England.  The  king,  who  had  good  intelli- 
gence of  their  movements,  set  up  his  standard  at  Nottingham, 
where  vast  numbers  resorted  to  him  every  day,  while  the  Earl 
of  Lincoln  could  gain  but  very  few.  With  his  sn.aH  force  he 
tried  to  make  for  the  town  of  Newark  ;  but  the  king's  army 
getting  between  him  and  that  place,  he  had  no  choice  but  to 
risk  a  battle  of  Stoke.  It  soon  ended  in  the  complete  destruc- 
tion of  the  pretender's  forces,  one  half  of  whom  were  killed ; 
among  them  the  earl  himself.  The  priest  and  the  baker's  bo^ 
were  taken  prisoners.  The  priest,  after  confessing  the  trick, 
was  shut  up  in  prison,  where  he  afterwards  died, — suddenly  per- 
haps. The  boy  was  taken  into  the  king's  kitchen,  and  made  a 
turnspit.  He  was  afterwards  raised  to  the  station  of  one  of  the 
king's  falconers  ;  and  so  ended  this  strange  imposition. 

There  seems  reason  to  suspect  that  the  dowager  queen — 
always  a  restless  and  busy  woman — had  had  some  share  in 
tutoring  the  baker's  son.  The  king  was  very  angry  with  her, 
whether  or  no.  He  seized  upon  her  property,  and  shut  her  up 
in  a  convent  at  Bermondsey. 

One  might  suppose  that  the  end  of  this  story  would  have 
put  the  Irish  people  on  their  guard  ;  but  they  were  quite  ready 
to  receive  a  second  impostor,  as  they  had  received  the  first,  and 
that  same  troublesome  Duchess  of  Burgundy  soon  gave  them 
the  opportunity.  All  of  a  sudden  there  appeared  at  Cork,  in  a 
vessel  arriving  from  Portugal,  a  young  man  of  excellent  abili- 
ties, of  very  handsome  appearance  and  most  winning  manners, 
who  declared  himself  to  be  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  the  second 
son  of  King  Edward  the  Fourth.  "  O,"  said  some,  even  of 
those  ready  Irish  believers,  "  but  surely  that  young  prince  was 
murdered  by  his  uncle  in  the  tower  !  "  "  It  is  supposed  so," 
said  the  engaging  young  man  ;  "  and  my  brother  was  killed  in 
that  gloomy  prison  ;  but  I  escaped, — it  don't  matter  how  at 
present, — and  have  been  wandering  about  the  world  for  seven 
long  years."  This  explanation  being  quite  satisfactory  to  num- 
bers of  the  Irish  people,  they  began  again  to  shout  and  to  hur- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH.  211 

rah,  and  to  drink  his  health,  and  to  make  the  noisy  and  thirsty 
demonstrations  all  over  again.  And  the  big  chieftain  in  Dublin 
began  to  look  out  for  another  coronation,  and  another  young 
king  to  be  carried  home  on  his  back. 

Now,  King  Henry  being  then  on  bad  terms  with  France,  the 
French  king,  Charles  the  Eighth,  saw  that,  by  pretending  to 
believe  in  the  handsome  young  man,  he  could  trouble  his  enemy 
sorely.  So  he  invited  him  over  to  the  French  court,  and  ap- 
pointed him  a  body-guard,  and  treated  him  in  all  respects  as  if 
he  really  were  the  Duke  of  York.  Peace,  however,  being  soon 
concluded  between  the  two  kings,  the  pretended  duke  was 
turned  adrift,  and  wandered  for  protection  to  the  Duchess  of 
Burgundy.  She,  after  feigning  to  inquire  into  the  reality  of  his 
claims,  declared  him  to  be  the  very  picture  of  her  dear  departed 
brother,  gave  him  a  body-guard,  at  her  court,  of  thirty  halber- 
diers, and  called  him  by  the  sounding  name  of  the  White  Rose 
of  England. 

The  leading  members  of  the  White-Rose  party  in  England 
sent  over  an  agent,  named  Sir  Robert  Clifford,  to  ascertain 
whether  the  White  Rose's  claims  were  good  ;  the  king  also  sent 
over  his  agents  to  inquire  into  the  Rose's  history.  The  White 
Rose  declared  the  young  man  to  be  really  the  Duke  of  York  ; 
the  king  declared  him  to  be  Perkin  Warbeck,  the  son  of  a  mer- 
chant of  the  city  of  Tournay,  who  had  acquired  his  knowledge 
of  England,  its  language  and  manners,  from  the  English  mer- 
chants who  trade  in  Flanders ;  it  was  also  stated  by  the  royal 
agents  thai  he  had  1  een  in  the  service  of  Lady  Brompton,  the 
wife  of  an  exiled  English  nobleman,  and  that  the  Duchess  of 
Burgundy  had  caused  him  to  be  trained  and  taught  expressly 
for  this  deception.  Tlie  king  then  required  the  Archduke 
Philip — who  was  the  sovereign  of  Burgundy — to  banish  this  new 
pretender,  or  to  deliver  him  up  ;  but,  as  the  archduke  replied 
that  he  could  not  control  the  duchess  in  her  own  land,  the  king, 
in  revenge,  took  the  market  of  English  cloth  away  from  Ant- 
werp, and  prevented  all  commercial  intercourse  between  the  two 
countries. 

He  also  by  arts  and  bribes,  prevailed  on  Sir  Robert  Clifford 
to  betray  his  employers  :  and  he  denouncing  several  famous 
English  noblemen  as  being  secretly  the  friends  of  Perkin  War- 
beck,  the  king  had  three  of  the  foremost  executed  at  once. 
Whether  he  pardoned  the  remainder  because  they  were  poor,  I 
do  not  know  ;  but  it  is  only  too  probable  that  he  refused  to  par- 
don one  famous  nobleman  against  whom  the  same  Clifford  soon 
afterwards  informed  separately,  because  he  was  rich.     This  wa$ 


f  T2  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

no  o:ner  than  Sir  William  vStanley,  who  had  saved  the  king's  life 
at  the  battle  of  I'osworth  Field.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether 
his  treason  amounted  to  much  more  than  his  having  said,  that, 
if  he  were  sure  the  young  man  was  the  Duke  of  York,  he  would 
not  take  arms  against  him.  Whatever  he  had  done  he  admit- 
ted, like  an  honorable  spirit ;  and  he  lost  his  head  for  it,  and 
the  covetous  king  gained  all  his  wealth. 

Perkin  Warbeck  kept  quiet  for  three  years  ;  but,  as  the 
Flemings  began  to  complain  heavily  of  the  loss  of  their  trade 
by  the  stopp  ige  of  the  Antwerp  market  on  his  account,  and  as 
it  was  not  unlikely  that  they  might  even  go  so  far  as  to  take 
his  life,  or  give  him  up,  he  found  it  necessary  to  do  something. 
Accordingly,  he  made  a  desperate  salU',  and  landed,  with  only 
a  few  hundred  men,  on  the  cost  of  Deal.  But  he  was  soon 
glad  to  get  back  on  the  place  from  whence  he  came ;  for  the 
country  people  rose  against  his  followers,  killed  a  great  many, 
and  took  a  hundred  and  fifty  prisoners,  who  were  all  driven  to 
London,  tied  together  with  ropes  like  a  team  of  cattle.  Every 
one  of  them  was  hanged  on  some  part  or  other  of  the  sea-shore, 
in  order  that,  if  any  more  men  should  come  over  with  Perkin 
Warbeck,  they  might  see  the  bodies  as  a  warning  before  they 
landed. 

Then  the  wary  king,  by  making  a  treaty  of  commerce  with 
the  Flemings,  drove  Perkin  Warbeck  out  of  that  country  ;  and, 
by  completely  gaining  over  the  Irish  to  his  side,  deprived  him 
of  that  asylum  too.  He  wandered  away  to  Scotland,  and  told  his 
story  at  that  court.  King  James  the  Fourth  of  Scotland,  who  was 
no  friend  to  King  Henry,  and  had  no  reason  to  be  (for  King 
Henry  had  bribed  his  Scotch  lords  to  betray  him  more  than 
once,  but  had  never  succeeded  in  his  plots),  gave  him  a  great 
reception,  called  him  his  cousin,  and  gave  him  in  marriage  the 
Lady  Catherine  Gordon,  a  beautiful  and  charming  creature,  re- 
lated to  the  royal  house  of  Stuart. 

Alarmed  by  this  successful  reappearance  of  the  Pretender, 
ihe  king  still  undermined  and  bought  and  bribed,  and  kept  his 
doings  and  Perkin  Warbeck's  story  in  the  dark,  when  he  might, 
o'?iQ  would  imagine,  have  rendered  the  matter  clear  to  all  Eng- 
land. But  for  all  this  bribing  of  the  Scotch  lords,  at  the  Scotch 
king's  court,  he  could  not  procure  the  Pretender  to  be  delivered 
up  to  him.  James,  though  not  very  particular  in  many  respects 
would  not  betray  him  ;  and  the  ever-busy  Duchess  of  Burgundy, 
so  provided  him  with  arms  and  good  soldiers,  and  with  money 
besides,  that  he  had  soon  a  little  army  of  fifteen  hundred  men 
of  various  nations.     With  these,  and  aided  by  the  Scottish  king 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH  213 

in  person,  he  crossed  the  Border  into  England,  and  made  a 
proclamation  to  the  people  ;  in  which  he  called  the  king  "  Henry 
Tudor,"  offered  large  rewards  to  any  who  should  take  or  dis- 
tress him,  and  announced  himself  as  King  Richard  the  Fourth, 
come  to  receive  the  homage  of  his  faithful  subjects.  His  faith- 
ful subjects,  however,  cared  nothing  for  him,  and  hated  his 
faithful  troops,  who,  being  of  different  nations,  quarrelled  also 
among  themselves.  Worse  than  this,  if  worse  were  possible, 
they  began  to  plunder  the  country  ;  upon  which  the  White  Rose 
said  that  he  would  rather  lose  his  rights  than  gain  them  throu.^h 
the  miseries  of  the  English  people.  The  Scottish  king  made  a 
jest  of  his  scruples  ;  but  they  and  their  whole  force  wejit  back 
again  without  fighting  a  battle. 

The  worst  consequence  of  this  attempt  was,  that  a  rising 
took  among  the  people  of  Cornwall,  who  considered  them- 
selves too  heavily  taxed  to  meet  the  charges  of  the  expected 
war.  Stimulated  by  Flammock,  a  lawyer,  and  Joseph,  a  black- 
smith, and  joined  by  Lord  Audley  and  some  other  country 
gentlemen,  they  marched  on  all  the  way  to  Deptford  Bridge, 
where  they  fought  a  battle  with  the  king's  army.  They  were 
defeated,  though  the  Cornish  men  fought  with  great  bravery 
and  the  lord  was  beheaded,  and  the  lawyer  and  the  blacksmith 
were  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered.  The  rest  were  pardoned. 
The  king,  who  believed  every  man  to  be  as  avaricious  as  him- 
self, and  thought  that  money  could  settle  anything,  allowed 
them  to  make  bargains  for  their  liberty  with  the  soldiers  who 
had  taken  them. 

Perkin  Warbeck,  doomed  to  wander  up  and  down,  and  never 
to  find  rest  anywhere, — a  sad  fate,  almost  a  sufficient  punish- 
ment for  an  imposture  which  he  seems  in  time  to  have  half 
believed  himself, — lost  his  Scottish  refuge  through  a  truce  being 
made  between  the  two  kings,  and  found  himself  once  more  with- 
out a  country  before  him  in  which  he  could  lay  his  head.  But 
James  (always  honorable  and  true  to  him,  alike  when  he  melted 
down  his  plate,  and  even  the  great  gold  chain  he  had  been  used 
to  wear,  to  pay  soldiers  in  his  cause,  and  now,  when  that  cause 
was  lost  and  hopeless)  did  not  conclude  the  treaty  until  he  had 
safely  departed  out  of  the  Scottish  dominions.  He  and  his 
beautiful  wife,  who  was  faithful  to  him  under  all  reverses,  and 
left  her  state  and  home  to  follow^  his  poor  fortunes,  were  put 
aboard  ship  with  everything  necessary  for  their  comfort  and 
protection,  and  sailed  for  Ireland. 

But  the  Irish  people  had  had  enough  of  counterfeit  Earls  of 
Warwick  and  Dukes  of  York  for  one  while,  and  would  give  the 


214 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


White  Rose  no  aid.  So  the  White  Rose — encircled  by  thorns 
indeed — resolved  to  go  with  his  beautiful  wife  to  Cornwall  as  a 
forlorn  resource,  and  see  what  might  be  made  of  the  Cornish 
men,  who  had  risen  so  valiantly  a  little  while  before,  and  who 
had  fought  so  bravely  at  Deptford  Bridge. 

To  Whitsand  Bay,  in  Cornwall,  accordingly  came  Perkin 
Warbeck  and  his  wife  ;  and  the  lovely  lady  he  shut  up  for  safety 
in  the  castle  of  St.  Michael's  Mount,  and  then  marched  into 
Devonshire  at  the  head  of  three  thousand  Cornish  men.  These 
were  increased  to  six  thousand  by  the  time  of  his  arrival  in 
Exeter  ;  but  there  the  people  made  a  stout  resistance,  and  he 
went  on  to  Taunton,  where  he  came  in  sight  of  the  king's  army. 
The  stout  Cornish  men,  although  they  were  few  in  number,  and 
badly  armed,  were  so  bold,  that  they  never  thought  of  retreat- 
ing, but  bravely  looked  forward  to  a  battle  on  the  morrow.  Un- 
happily for  them,  the  man  who  was  possessed  of  so  many  en- 
gaging qualities,  and  who  attracted  so  many  people  to  his  side 
when  he  had  nothing  else,  with  which  to  tempt  them,  was  not  as 
brave  as  they.  In  the  night,  when  the  two  armies  lay  opposite 
to  each  other,  he  mounted  a  swift  horse  and  fled.  When  morn- 
ing dawned,  the  poor  confiding  Cornish  men,  discovering  that 
they  had  no  leader,  surrendered  to  the  king's  power.  Some  of 
them  were  hanged,  and  the  rest  were  pardoned,  and  went 
miserably  home. 

Before  the  king  pursued  Perkin  Warbeck  to  the  sanctuary  of 
Beaulieu  in  the  New  Forest,  where  it  was  soon  known  that  he 
had  taken  refuge,  he  sent  a  body  of  horsemen  to  St.  Michael's 
Mount  to  seize  his  wife.  She  was  soon  taken,  and  brought  as 
a  captive  before  the  king.  But  she  was  so  beautiful  and  so 
good,  and  so  devoted  to  the  man  in  whom  she  believed,  that 
the  king  regarded  her  with  compassion,  treated  her  with  great 
respect,  and  placed  her  at  court,  near  the  queen's  person.  And 
many  years  after  Perkin  Warbeck  was  no  more,  and  when  his 
strange  story  had  become  like  a  nursery  tale,  x-^^was  called  the 
White  Rose,  by  the  people,  in  remembrance  of  her  beauty. 

The  sanctuary  at  Beaulieu  was  soon  surrounded  by  the 
king's  men  ;  and  the  king,  pursued  his  usual  dark,  artful  ways, 
sent  pretended  friends  to  Perkin  Warbeck  to  persuade  him  to 
come  out  and  surrender  himself.  This  he  soon  did  ;  the  king 
having  taken  a  good  look  at  the  man  of  whom  he  had  heard  so 
much,  from  behind  a  screen,  directed  him  to  be  well  mounted, 
and  to  ride  behind  him  at  a  little  distance,  guarded,  but  not 
bound  in  any  way.  So  they  entered  London  with  the  king's 
favorite  show, — a  procession ;  and  some  of  the  people  hooted 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH. 


2IS 


as  the  Pretender  rode  slowly  through  the  streets  to  the  Tower, 
but  the  greater  part  were  'quiet,  and  very  curious  to  see  him. 
From  the  Tower  he  was  taken  to  the  palace  at  Westminster, 
and  there  lodged  like  a  gentleman,  though  closely  watched.  He 
was  examined  every  now  and  then  as  to  his  imposture ;  but 
the  king  was  so  secret  in  all  he  did,  that  even  then  he  gave  it 
a  consequence  which  it  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  in  itself 
deserved. 

At  last  Perkin  Warbeck  ran  away,  and  took  refuge  in  an- 
other sanctuary  near  Richmond  in  Surrey.  From  this  he  was 
again  persuaded  to  deliver  himself  up  ;  and,  being  conveyed 
to  London,  he  stood  in  the  stocks  for  a  whole  day,  outside 
Westminster  Hall,  and  there  read  a  paper  purporting  to  be  his 
full  confession,  and  relating  his  history  as  the  king's  agents  had 
originally  described  it.  He  was  then  shut  up  in  the  Tower 
again,  in  the  company  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  who  had  now 
been  there  for  fourteen  years, — ever  since  his  removal  out  of 
Yorkshire,  except  when  the  king  had  had  him  at  court,  and  had 
shown  him  to  the  people,  to  prove  the  imposture  of  the  baker's 
boy.  It  is  but  too  probable,  when  we  consider  the  crafty  char- 
acter of  Henry  the  Seventh,  that  these  two  men  were  brought 
together  for  a  cruel  purpose.  A  plot  was  soon  discovered  be- 
tween them  and  the  keepers,  to  murder  the  governor,  get  pos- 
session of  the  keys,  and  proclaim  Perkin  Warbeck  as  King 
Richard  the  Fourth.  That  there  was  some  such  plot  is  likely  ; 
that  they  were  tempted  into  it  is  at  least  as  likely ;  that  the 
unfortunate  Earl  of  Warwick — last  male  of  the  Plantagenet 
line — was  too  unused  to  the  world,  and  too  ignorant  and  simple 
to  know  much  about  it,  whatever  it  was,  is  perfectly  certain  ; 
and  that  it  was  the  king's  interest  to  get  rid  of  him  is  no  less 
so.  He  was  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill,  and  Perkin  Warbeck 
was  hanged  at  Tyburn. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  pretended  Duke  of  York,  whosa 
shadowy  history  was  made  more  shadowy,  and  ever  will  be,  by 
the  mystery  and  craft  of  the  king.  If  he  had  turned  his  great 
natural  advantages  to  a  more  honest  account,  he  might  have 
lived  a  happy  and  respected  life,  even  in  those  days  ;  but  he 
died  upon  the  gallows  at  Tyburn,  leaving  the  Scottish  lady,  who 
had  loved  him  so  well,  kindly  protected  at  the  queen's  court. 
After  some  time  she  forgot  her  old  loves  and  troubles,  as  many 
people  do  with  Time's  merciful  assistance,  and  married  a 
Welsh  gentleman.  Her  second  husband,  Sir  Matthew  Cradoc, 
more  honest  and  more  happy  than  her  first,  lies  beside  her  in 
a  tomb  in  the  old  church  of  Swansea. 


f  l6  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

The  ill  blood  between  France  and  England,  in  this  reign, 
arose  out  of  the  continued  plotting  of  the  Duchess  of  Bur- 
gundy, and  disputes  respecting  the  affairs  of  Brittany.  The 
king  feigned  to  be  very  patriotic,  indignant,  and  warlike  ;  but 
he  always  contrived  so  as  never  to  make  war  in  reality,  and  al- 
ways to  make  money.  His  taxation  of  the  people,  on  pretence 
of  war  with  France,  involved  at  one  time  a  very  dangerous  in- 
surrection, headed  by  Sir  John  Egremont,  and  a  common  man 
called  John  a  Chambre.  But  it  was  subdued  by  the  royal 
forces,  under  the  command  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey.  The 
knighted  John  escaped  to  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  who  was 
ever  ready  to  receive  any  one  who  gave  the  king  trouble  ;  and 
the  plain  John  was  hanged  at  York,  in  the  midst  of  a  number 
of  his  men,  but  on  a  much  higher  gibbet,  as  being  a  greater 
traitor.  Hung  high  or  hung  low,  however,  hanging  is  much 
the  same  to  the  person  hung. 

Within  a  year  af tc  t  her  mama|;ej  th^  queen  had  given  birth 
to  a  son,  who  was  called  Prince  Arthur  iii  remembrance  of  the 
old  British  prince  of  roiifiance  and  ctory  and  who  when  all 
these  events  had  happened^  being  theii  in  his  fifteenth  year, 
was  married  to  Catheriinie.  the  daughter  of  the  Spanish  mon- 
arch, with  great  rejoicings  and  bright  prospects  ;  but  in  a  very 
few  months  he  sickened  and  died.  As  soon  as  the  king  had 
recovered  from  his  grief,  he  thought  it  a  pity  that  the  fortune 
of  the  Spanish  princess,  amounting  to  two  hundred  thousand 
crowns,  should  go  out  of  the  family ;  and  therefore  arranged 
that  the  young  widow  should  marry  his  second  son,  Henry, 
then  twelve  years  of  age,  when  he  too  should  be  fifteen.  There 
were  objections  to  this  marriage  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  ;  but 
as  the  infallible  pope  was  gained  over^  and  as  he  musthe.  right, 
that  settled  the  business  for  the  time.  The  king's  eldest 
daughter  was  provided  for,  and  a  long  course  of  disturbance 
was  considered  to  be  set  at  rest,  by  her  being  married  to  the 
Scottish  king. 

And  now  the  queen  died.  When  the  king  had  got  over 
that  grief  too,  his  mind  once  more  reverted  to  his  darling 
money  for  consolation,  and  he  thought  of  marrying  the  Dowa- 
ger Queen  of  Naples,  who  was  immensely  rich  ;  but  as  it  turned 
out  not  to  be  practicable  to  gain  the  money,  however  practica- 
ble  it  might  have  been  to  gain  the  lady,  he  gave  up  the  idea. 
He  was  not  so  fond  of  her  but  that  he  soon  proposed  to  marry 
the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Savoy ;  and,  soon  afterwards,  the 
widow  of  the  King  of  Castile,  who  was  raving  mad.  But  he 
made  a  money-bargain  instead,  and  married  neither. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  SEVENTH.  217 

The  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  among  the  other  discontented 
people  to  whom  she  had  given  refuge,  had  sheltered  Edmund 
de  la  Pole  (younger  brother  of  that  Earl  of  Lincoln  who  was 
killed  at  Stoke),  now  Earl  of  Suffolk.  The  king  had  pre- 
vailed upon  him  to  return  to  the  marriage  of  Prince  Arthur ; 
but  he  soon  afterwards  went  away  again  ;  and  then  the  king, 
suspecting  a  conspiracy,  resorted  to  his  favorite  plan  of  send- 
ing him  some  treacherous  friends,  and  buying  of  those  scoun- 
drels the  secrets  they  disclosed  or  invented.  Some  arrests  and 
executions  took  place  in  consequence.  In  the  end,  the  king, 
on  a  promise  of  not  taking  his  life,  obtained  possession  of  the 
person  of  Edmund  de  la  Pole,  and  shut  him  up  in  the  tower. 

This  was  his  last  enemy.  If  he  had  lived  much  longer  he 
would  have  made  many  more  among  the  people^  by  the  grind- 
ing exaction  to  which  he  constantly  exposed  them,  and  by  the 
tyrannical  acts  of  his  two  prime  favorites  in  all  money-raising 
matters,  Edmund  Dudley  and  Richard  Empson.  But  Death — 
the  enemy  who  is  not  to  be  bought  off  or  deceived,  and  on 
whom  no  money  and  no  treachery  has  any  effect — presented 
himself  at  this  juncture,  and  ended  the  king's  reign.  He  died 
of  the  gout,  on  the  2 2d  of  April,  1509,  and  in  the  fifty-third 
year  of  his  age,  after  reigning  twenty-four  years.  He  was 
buried  in  the  beautiful  chapel  of  Westminster  Abbey,  which  he 
had  himself  founded,  and  which  still  bears  his  name. 

It  was  in  this  reign  that  the  great  Christopher  Columbus, 
on  behalf  of  Spain  discovered  what  was  then  called  the  New 
World.  Great  wonder,  interest  and  hope  of  wealth  being 
awakened  in  England  thereby,  the  king  and  the  merchants  of 
London  and  Bristol  fitted  out  an  English  expedition  for  further 
discoveries  in  the  New  World,  and  intrusted  it  to  Sebastian 
Cabot  of  Bristol,  the  son  of  a  Venetian  pilot  there.  He  was 
very  successful  in  his  voyage,  and  gained  high  reputation,  both 
for  himself  and  England. 


2l8  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

england  under  henry  the  eighth,  called  bluff  king 
hal,  and  burly  king  harry. 

Part  the  First. 

We  now  come  to  King  Henry  the  Eighth,  whom  it  has  been 
too  much  the  fashion  to  call  "  Bluff  King  Hal  "  and  "  Burly 
King  Harry,"  and  other  fine  names ;  but  whom  I  shall  take 
the  liberty  to  call  plainly  one  of  the  most  detestable  villains 
that  ever  drew  breath.  You  will  be  able  to  judge,  long  be- 
fore we  come  to  the  end  of  his  life,  whether  he  deserves  the 
character. 

He  was  just  eighteen  years  of  age  when  he  came  to  the 
throne.  People  said  he  was  handsome  then  ;  but  I  don't  be- 
lieve it.  He  was  a  big,  burly,  noisy,  small-eyed,  large-faced, 
double-chinned,  swinish-looking  fellow,  in  later  life  (as  we  know 
from  the  likenesses  of  him,  painted  by  the  famous  Hans  Hol- 
bein), and  it  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  so  bad  a  character  can 
ever  have  been  veiled  under  a  prepossessing  appearance. 

He  was  anxious  to  make  himself  popular ;  and  the  people, 
who  had  long  disliked  the  late  king,  were  very  willing  to  be- 
lieve that  he  deserved  to  be  so.  He  was  extremely  fond  o£ 
show  and  display,  and  so  were  they.  Therefore  there  was 
great  rejoicing  when  he  married  the  Princess  Catherine,  and 
when  they  were  both  crowned.  And  the  king  fought  at  tour- 
naments, and  always  came  off  victorious, — for  the  courtiers  took 
care  of  that ;  and  there  was  a  general  outcry  that  he  was  a 
wonderful  man.  Empson,  Dudley,  and  their  supporters  were 
accused  of  a  variety  of  crimes  they  had  never  committed,  in- 
stead of  the  offences  of  which  they  really  had  been  guilty  ;  and 
they  were  pilloried,  and  set  upon  horses  with  their  faces  to  the 
tails,  and  knocked  about  and  beheaded,  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  people,  and  the  enrichment  of  the  king. 

The  pope,  so  indefatigable  in  getting  the  world  into  trouble, 
had  mixed  himself  up  in  a  war  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  oc- 
casioned by  the  reigning  princes  of  little  quarrelling  states  in 
Italy  having  at  various  times  married  into  other  royal  families, 
and  so  led  to  their  claiming  a  share  in  those  petty  govern- 
ments.   The  king,  who  discovered  that  he  was  very  fond  of  the 


ENGLAND  UADER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH. 


219 


pope,  sent  a  herald  to  the  King  of  France  to  say,  that  he  must 
not  make  war  upon  that  holy  personage,  because  he  was  the 
father  of  all  Christians.  As  the  French  king  did  not  mind  this 
relationship  in  the  least,  and  also  refused  to  admit  a  claim 
King  Henry  made  to  certain  lands  in  France,  war  was  declared 
between  the  two  countries.  Not  to  perplex  this  story  with  an 
account  of  the  tricks  and  designs  of  all  the  sovereigns  who 
were  engaged  in  it,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  England  made  a 
blundering  alliance  with  Spain,  and  got  stupidly  taken  in  by 
that  country,  which  made  its  own  terms  with  France  when  it 
it  could,  and  left  England  in  the  lurch.  Sir  Edward  Howard, 
a  bold  admiral,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  distinguished  himself 
by  his  bravery  against  the  French  in  this  business;  but  unfor- 
tunately he  was  more  brave  than  wise,  for,  skimming  into  the 
French  harbor  of  Brest  with  only  a  few  row-boats,  he  attempted 
(in  revenge  for  the  defeat  and  death  of  Sir  Thomas  Knyvett, 
another  bold  English  admiral)  to  take  some  strong  French 
ships,  well  defended  with  batteries  of  cannon.  The  upshot  was, 
that  he  was  left  on  board  of  one  of  them  (in  consequence  of  its 
shooting  away  from  his  own  boat),  with  not  more  than  about  a 
dozen  men,  and  was  thrown  into  the  sea  and  drowned, — though 
not  until  he  had  taken  from  his  breast  his  gold  chain  and  gold 
whistle,  which  were  the  signs  of  his  office,  and  had  cast  them 
into  the  sea  to  prevent  their  being  made  a  boast  of  by  the  en- 
emy. After  this  defeat, — which  was  a  great  one,  for  Sir  Ed- 
ward Howard  was  a  man  of  valor  and  fame,  the  king  took  it 
into  his  head  to  invade  France  in  person  ;  first  executing  that 
dangerous  Earl  of  Suffolk,  whom  his  father  had  left  in  the 
Tower,  and  appointing  Queen  Catherine  to  the  charge  of  his 
kingdom  in  his  absence.  He  sailed  to  Calais,  where  he  was 
joined  by  Maximilian,  Emperor  of  Germany,  who  pretended  to 
be  his  soldier,  and  who  took  pay  in  his  service, — with  a  good 
deal  of  nonsense  of  that  sort,  flattering  enough  to  the  vanity  of 
a  vain  blusterer.  The  king  might  be  successful  enough  in 
sham  fights  ;  but  his  idea  of  real  battles  chiefly  consisted  in 
pitching  silken  tents  of  bright  colors,  that  were  ignominiously 
blown  down  by  the  wind,  and  in  making  a  vast  display  of  gaudy 
flags  and  golden  curtains.  Fortune,  however,  favored  him  bet- 
ter than  he  deserved;  for  after  much  waste  of  time  in  tent- 
pitching,  flag-flying,  gold-curtaining,  and  other  such  masquer- 
ading, he  gave  the  French  battle  at  a  place  called  Guinegate  ; 
where  they  took  such  an  unaccountable  panic,  and  fled  with 
such  swiftness,  that  it  was  ever  afterwards  called  by  the  Eng- 
lish the  Battle  of  Spurs.     Instead  of  following  up  his  advan- 


•to 


CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAI^D, 


tage,  the  k?ng,  finding  that  he  had  had  enough  of  real  fighting; 
came  home  again. 

The  Scottish  king,  though  nearly  related  to  Henry  by  mar- 
riage, had  taken  part  against  him  in  this  war.  The  Earl  of 
Surrey,  as  the  English  general,  advanced  to  meet  him  when  he 
came  out  of  his  own  dominions,  and  crossed  the  river  Tweed. 
The  two  armies  came  up  with  one  another  when  the  Scottish 
king  had  also  crossed  the  river  Till,  and  was  encamped  upon 
the  last  of  the  Cheviot  Hills,  called  the  Hill  of  Flodden. 
Along  the  plain  below  it,  the  English,  when  the  hour  of  battle 
came,  advanced.  The  Scottish  army,  which  had  been  drawn 
up  in  five  great  bodies,  then  came  steadily  down  in  perfect 
silence.  So  they,  in  their  turn,  advanced  to  meet  the  English 
army,  which  came  on  in  one  long  line ;  and  they  attacked  it 
with  a  body  of  spearmen,  under  Lord  Home.  At  first  they 
had  the  best  of  it ;  but  the  English  recovered  themselves  so 
bravely,  and  fought  with  such  valor,  that,  when  the  Scottish 
king  had  almost  made  his  way  up  to  the  royal  standard,  he  was 
slain,  and  the  whole  Scottish  power  routed.  Ten  thousand 
Scottish  men  lay  dead  that  day  on  Flodden  Field  ;  and  among 
them  numbers  of  the  nobility  and  gentry.  For  a  long  time  af- 
terwards, the  Scottish  peasantry  used  to  believe  that  their  king 
had  not  been  really  killed  in  this  battle,  because  no  English- 
man had  found  an  iron  belt  he  wore  about  his  body  as  a  pen- 
ance for  having  been  an  unnatural  and  undutiful  son.  But 
whatever  became  of  his  belt,  the  English  had  his  sword  and 
dagger,  and  the  ring  from  his  finger,  and  his  body  too,  cov- 
ered with  wounds.  There  is  no  doubt  of  it ;  for  it  was  seen 
and  recognized  by  English  gentlemen  who  had  known  the 
Scottish  king  well. 

When  King  Henry  was  making  ready  to  renew  the  war  in 
France,  the  French  king  was  contemplating  peace.  His  queen 
dying  at  this  time,  he  proposed,  though  he  was  upwards  of  fifty 
years  old,  to  marry  King  Henry's  sister,  the  Princess  Mary, 
who,  besides  being  only  sixteen,  was  betrothed  to  the  Duke  of 
Suffolk.  As  the  inclinations  of  young  princesses  were  not 
much  considered  in  such  matters,  the  marriage  was  concluded, 
and  the  poor  girl  was  escorted  to  France,  where  she  was  imme- 
diately left  as  the  French  king's  bride,  with  only  one  of  all  her 
English  attendants.  That  one  was  a  pretty  young  girl  named 
Anne  Boleyn,  niece  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  who  had  been  made 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  after  the  victory  of  Flodden  Field.  Anne 
Boleyn's  is  a  name  to  be  remembered,  as  you  will  presently 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  221 

And  now  the  French  king,  who  was  very  proud  of  his  young 
wife,  was  preparing  for  many  years  of  happiness,  and  she  was 
looking  forward,  I  daresay,  to  many  years  of  misery,  when  he 
died  within  three  months,  and  left  her  a  young  widow.  The 
new  French  monarch,  Francis  the  First,  seeing  how  important 
it  was  to  his  interests  that  she  should  take  for  her  second  hus- 
band no  one  but  an  Englishman,  advised  her  first  lover,  the 
Duke  of  Suffolk,  when  King  Henry  sent  him  over  to  France  to 
fetch  her  home  to  marry  her.  The  princess  being  herself  so 
fond  of  that  duke  as  to  tell  him  that  he  must  either  do  so  then, 
or  forever  lose  her,  they  were  wedded  ;  and  Henry  afterwards 
forgave  them.  In  making  interest  with  the  king,  the  Duke  of 
Suffolk  had  addressed  his  most  powerful  favorite  and  adviser, 
Thomas  Wolsey, — a  name  very  famous  in  history  for  its  rise 
and  downfall. 

Wolsey  was  the  son  of  a  respectable  butcher  at  Ipswich,  in 
Suffolk,  and  received  so  excellent  an  education  that  he  became 
a  tutor  to  the  family  of  the  Marquis  of  Dorset,  who  afterwards 
got  him  appointed  one  of  the  late  king's  chaplains.  On  the 
accession  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  be  was  promoted,  and  taken 
into  great  favor.  He  was  now  Archbishop  of  York  ;  the  pope 
had  made  him  a  cardinal  besides  ;  and  whoever  wanted  influ- 
ence in  England,  or  favor  with  the  king,— whether  he  were  a 
foreign  monarch  or  an  English  nobleman, — was  obliged  to  make 
a  friend  of  the  great  Cardinal  Wolsey. 

He  was  a  gay  man,  who  could  dance  and  jest  and  sing  and 
drink  ;  and  those  were  the  roads  to  see  much,  or  rather  so  little, 
of  a  heart  as  King  Henry  had.  He  was  wonderfully  fond  of 
pomp  and  glitter  ;  and  so  was  the  king.  He  knew  a  good  deal 
of  the  church  learning  of  that  time ;  much  of  which  consisted  in 
finding  artful  excuses  and  pretences  for  almost  any  wrong  thing, 
and  in  arguing  that  black  was  white,  or  any  other  color.  This 
kind  of  learning  pleased  the  king  too.  For  many  such  reasons, 
the  cardinal  was  high  in  estimation  with  the  king  ,  and,  being 
a  man  of  far  greater  ability,  knew  as  well  how  to  manage  him, 
as  a  clever  keeper  may  know  to  manage  a  wolf  or  a  tiger,  or 
any  other  cruel  and  uncertain  beast,  that  may  turn  upon  him  and 
tear  him  any  day.  Never  had  there  been  in  England  such 
state  as  my  lord  cardinal  kept.  His  wealth  was  enormous  j 
equal,  it  was  reckoned,  to  the  riches  of  the  crown.  His  palaces 
were  as  splendid  as  the  king's,  and  his  retinue  was  eight  hun- 
dred strong.  He  held  his  court,  dreesed  out  from  top  to  toe  in 
flaming  scarlet ;  and  his  very  shoes  were  golden,  set  with 
precious  stones.    His  followers  rode  on  blood  horses  ;  while  he, 


222  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

with  a  wonderful  affection  of  humility  in  the  midst  of  his  great 
splendor,  ambled  on  a  mule  with  a  red  velvet  saddle  and  bridle 
and  golden  stirrups. 

Through  the  influence  of  this  stately  priest,  a  grand  meeting 
was  arranged  to  take  place  between  the  French  and  English 
kings  in  France,  but  on  ground  belonging  to  England.  A  pro- 
digious sliow  of  friendship  and  rejoicing  was  to  be  made  on  the 
occasion  ;  and  heralds  were  sent  to  proclaim  with  brazen  trum- 
pets through  all  the  principal  cities  of  Europe,  that,  on  a  certain 
day,  the  kings  of  France  and  England,  as  companions  and 
brothers  in  arms,  each  attended  by  eighteen  followers,  would 
hold  a  tournament  against  all  knights  who  might  choose  to  come. 

Charles,  the  new  Emperor  of  Germany  (the  old  one  being 
dead),  wanted  to  prevent  too  cordial  an  alliance  betweefi  these 
sovereigns,  and  came  over  to  England  before  the  king  could 
repair  to  the  place  of  meeting  ;  and,  besides  making  an  agree- 
able impression  upon  him,  secured  Wolsey's  interest  by  promis- 
ing that  his  influence  should  make  him  pope,  when  the  nex( 
vacancy  occurred.  On  the  day  when  the  emperor  left  England, 
the  king  and  all  the  court  went  over  to  Calais,  and  thence  to  the 
place  of  meeting,  between  Ardres  and  Guisnes,  commonly  called 
the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  Here  all  manner  of  expense 
and  prodigality  was  lavished  on  the  decorations  of  the  show  ; 
many  of  the  knights  and  gentlemen  being  so  superbly  dressed 
that  it  was  said  they  carried  their  whole  estates  upon  their 
shoulders. 

There  were  sham  castles,  temporary  chapels,  fountains  run- 
ning wine,  great  cellars  full  of  wine  free  as  water  to  all  comers, 
silk  tents,  gold  lace  and  foil,  gilt  lions,  and  such  things  without 
end  ;  and,  in  the  midst  of  all,  the  rich  cardinal  out-shone  and 
out-glittered  all  the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  assembled.  After 
a  treaty  made  between  the  two  kings,  with  as  much  solemnity  as 
if  they  had  intended  to  keep  it,  the  lists,  nine  hundred  feet  long 
and  three  hundred  and  twenty  broad,  were  opened  for  the 
tournament ;  the  Queens  of  France  and  England  looking  on 
with  great  array  of  lords  and  ladies.  Then  for  ten  days  the  two 
sovereigns  fought  five  combats  every  day,  and  always  beat  their 
polite  adversaries  ;  though  they  do  write  that  the  King  of  Eng- 
land, being  thrown  in  a  wrestle  one  day  by  the  King  of  France, 
lost  his  kingly  temper  with  his  brother  in  arms,  and  wanted  to 
make  a  quarrel  of  it.  Then  there  is  a  great  story  belonging  to 
this  PMeld  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  showing  how  the  English  were 
distrustful  of  the  French,  and  the  French  of  the  English,  until 
Francis  rode  alone  one  morning  to  Henry's  tent,  and,  going  in 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH. 


123 


before  he  was  out  of  bed,  told  him  in  joke  that  he  was  his  pris- 
oner ;  and  how  Henry  jumped  out  of  bed  and  embraced  Francis, 
and  how  Francis  helped  Henry  to  dress  and  warmed  his  linen 
for  him  ;  and  how  Henry  gave  Francis  a  splendid  jewelled  col- 
lar, and  how  Francis  gave  Henry,  in  return,  a  costly  bracelet. 
All  this  and  a  great  deal  more  was  so  written  about,  and  sung 
about,  and  talked  about  at  that  time  (and,  indeed,  since  that 
time  too),  that  the  world  has  had  good  cause  lo  be  sick  of  it 
forever. 

Of  course,  nothing  came  of  all  these  fine  doings  but  a  speedy 
renewal  of  t-lie  war  between  England  and  France,  in  which  the 
two  royal  companions  and  brothers  in  arms  longed  very  earnestly 
to  damage  one  another.  But,  before  it  broke  out  again,  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham  was  shamefully  executed  on  Tower  Hill, 
on  the  evidence  of  a  discharged  servant, — really  for  nothing, 
except  the  folly  of  having  believed  in  a  friar  of  the  name  of 
Hopkins,  who  had  pretended  to  be  a  prophet,  and  who  had 
mumbled  and  jumbled  out  some  nonsense  about  the  duke's  son 
being  destined  to  be  very  great  in  the  land.  It  was  believed 
that  the  unfortunate  duke  had  given  offence  to  the  great  car- 
dinal by  expressing  his  mind  freely  about  the  expense  and 
absurdity  of  ^the  whole  business  of  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of 
Gold.  At  any  rate,  he  was  beheaded,  as  I  have  said,  for  noth- 
ing. And  the  people  who  saw  it  done  were  very  angry,  and 
cried  out  that  it  was  the  work  of  "  the  butcher's  son  !  " 

The  new  war  was  a  short  one,  though  the  Earl  of  Surrey  in- 
vaded France  again,  and  did  some  injury  to  that  country.  It 
ended  in  another  treaty  of  peace  between  the  two  kingdoms, 
and  in  the  discovery  that  the  Emperor  of  Germany  was  not  such 
a  good  friend  to  England  in  reality  as  he  pretended  to  be. 
Neither  did  he  keep  his  promise  to  Wolsey  to  make  him  pope, 
though  the  king  urged  him.  Two  popes  died  in  pretty  quick 
succession  ;  but  the  foreign  priests  were  too  much  for  the  car- 
dinal, and  kept  him  out  of  the  post.  So  the  cardinal  and  king 
together  found  out  that  the  Emperor  of  Germany  was  not  a  man 
to  keep  faith  with;  broke  off  a  projected  marriage  between  the 
king's  daughter  Mary,  Princess  of  Wales,  and  that  sovereign, 
and  began  to  consider  whether  it  might  not  be  well  to  marry 
the  young  lady  either  to  Francis  himself,  or  to  his  eldest  son. 

There  now  arose  at  Wittemberg,  in  Germany,  the  great 
leader  of  the  mighty  change  in  England  which  is  called  The 
Reformation,  and  which  set  the  people  free  from  their  slavery 
to  the  priests.  This  was  a  learned  doctor,  named  Martin 
Luther,  who  knew  all  about  them ;  for  he  had  been  a  priest,  and 


224 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


even  a  monk,  himself.  The  preaching  and  writing  of  Wyckliffe 
had  set  a  number  of  men  thinking  on  this  subject;  and  Luther 
finding  one  day,  to  his  great  surprise,  that  there  really  was  a 
book  called  the  New  Testament  which  the  priests  did  not  allow 
to  be  read,  and  which  contained  truths  that  they  suppressed, 
began  to  be  very  vigorous  against  the  whole  body,  from  the 
pope  downward.  It  happened,  while  he  was  yet  only  beginning 
his  vast  work  of  awakening  the  nation,  that  an  impudent  fellow 
named  Tetzel,  a  friar  of  very  bad  character,  came  into  his  neigh- 
borhood selling  what  were  called  indulgences,  by  wholesale,  to 
raise  money  for  beautifying  the  great  Cathedral  of  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome.  Whoever  bought  an  indulgence  of  the  pope  was  sup- 
posed to  buy  himself  off  from  the  punishment  of  Heaven  for 
his  offences.  Luther  told  the  people  that  these  indulgences 
were  worthless  bits  of  paper  before  God,  and  that  Tetzel  and  his 
masters  were  a  crew  of  impostors  in  selling  them. 

The  king  and  the  cardinal  were  mightily  indignant  at  this 
presumption  ;  and  the  king  (with  the  help  of  Sir  Thomas -More, 
a  wise  man,  whom  he  afterwards  repaid  by  striking  off  his  head) 
even  wrote  a  book  about  it,  with  which  the  pope  was  so  well 
pleased,  that  he  gave  the  king  the  title  of  Defender  of  the  Faith. 
The  king  and  the  cardinal  also  issued  flaming  warnings  to  the 
people  not  to  read  Luther's  books,  on  pain  of  excommunication. 
But  they  did  read  them  for  ail  that ;  and  the  rumor  of  what  was 
in  them  spread  far  and  wide. 

When  this  great  change  was  thus  going  on,  the  king  began 
to  show  himself  in  his  truest  and  w^orst  colors.  Anne  Boleyn, 
the  pretty  little  girl  who  had  gone  abroad  to  France  with  his 
sister,  was  by  this  time  grown  up  to  be  very  beautiful,  and  was 
one  of  the  ladies  in  attendance  on  Queen  Catherine.  Now 
Queen  Catherine  was  no  longer  young  or  handsome,  and  it  is 
likely  that  she  was  not  particularly  good  tempered  ;  havi.ig  been 
always  rather  melancholy,  and  having  been  made  more  so  by 
the  deaths  of  four  of  her  children,  when  they  were  very  young. 
So  the  king  fell  in  love  with  the  fair  Anne  Boleyn,  and  said  to 
himself,  "  How  can  I  be  best  rid  of  my  own  troublesome  wife, 
whom  I  am  tired  of,  and  marry  Anne  ?  " 

You  recollect  that  Queen  Catherine  had  been  the  wife  of 
Henr)^'s  brother.  What  does  the  king  do,  after  thinking  it  over, 
but  calls  his  favorite  priests  about  him,  and  says,  O,  his  mind 
is  in  such  a  dreadful  state,  and  he  is  so  frightfully  uneasy,  be- 
cause he  is  afraid  it  was  not  lawful  for  him  to  marry  the  queen  ! 
Not  one  of  those  priests  had  the  courage  to  hint  that  it  was 
rather  curious  he  had  never  thought  of  that  before,  and  that  his 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  ,25 

mind  seemed  to  have  been  in  a  tolerable  jolly  condition  during 
a  great  many  years,  in  which  he  certainly  had  not  fretted  him- 
self thin  ;  but  they  all  said,  Ah  !  that  was  very  true,  and  it  was 
a  s  rious  business  ;  and  perhaps  the  best  way  to  make  it  right, 
would  be  for  his  majesty  to  be  divorced !  The  king  replied, 
Yes  ;  he  thought  that  would  be  the  best  way  certainly  ;  so  they 
all  went  to  work. 

If  I  were  to  relate  to  you  the  intrigues  and  plots  that  took 
place  in  the  endeavor  to  get  this  divorce,  you  would  think  the 
History  of  England  the  most  tiresome  book  in  the  world.  So 
[  shall  say  no  more  than,  that,  after  a  vast  deal  of  negotiation 
and  evasion,  the  pope  issued  a  commission  to  Cardinal  Wolsey 
and  Cardinal  Campeggio  (whom  he  sent  over  from  Italy  for  the 
purpose)  to  try  the  whole  case  in  England.  It  is  supposed — and 
I  think  with  reason — that  Wolsey  was  the  queen's  enemy,  be- 
cause she  had  reproved  him  for  his  proud  and  gorgeous  manner 
of  life.  But  he  did  not  at  first  know  that  the  king  wanted  to 
marry  Anne  Boleyn ;  and,  when  he  did  know  it,  he  even  went 
down  on  his  knees,  in  the  endeavor  to  dissuade  him. 

The  cardinals  opened  their  court  in  the  Convent  of  the 
Black  Friars,  near  to  where  the  bridge  of  that  name  in  London 
now  stands  ;  and  the  king  and  queen,  that  they  might  be  near  it 
took  up  their  lodgings  at  the  adjoining  Palace  of  Bridewell  r  ' 
which  nothing  now  remains  but  a  bad  prison.  On  the  opti.ii  ;; 
of  the  court,  when  the  king  and  queen  were  called  on  to  appear, 
that  poor  ill-used  lady  with  a  dignity  and  firmness,  and  yet  with 
a  womanly  affection  worthy  to  be  always  admired,  went  and 
kneeled  at  the  king's  feet,  and  said  that  she  had  come  a  stran- 
ger  to  his  dominions ;  that  she  had  been  a  good  and  true  wife 
to  him  for  twenty  years  ;  and  that  she  could  acknowledge  no 
power  in  those  cardinals  to  try  whether  she  should  be  consid- 
ered his  wife  after  all  that  time,  or  should  be  put  away.  With 
that  she  got  up  and  left  the  court,  and  would  never  afterwards 
come  back  to  it. 

The  king  pretended  to  be  very  much  overcome,  and  said,  O 
my  lords  and  gentlemen,  what  a  good  woman  she  was  to  be  sure, 
and  how  delighted  he  would  be  to  live  with  her  unto  death,  but 
for  that  terrible  uneasiness  in  his  mind  which  was  quite  wearing 
him  away  !  So  the  case  went  on,  and  there  was  nothing  but 
talk  for  two  months.  Then  Cardinal  Campeggio,  who,  on  be- 
half of  the  pope,  wanted  nothing  so  much  as  delay,  adjourned 
it  for  two  more  months  ;  and,  before  that  time  was  elapsed,  the 
pope  himself  adjourned  it  indefinitely,  by  requirip«*^-)e  king  and 
quLien  to  come  to  Rome  and  have  it  tried  there.         \  by  good 


2  26  ^  LlIlLDS  IIiS'iOKY  OF  EXGLAAD. 

luck  for  the  king,  word  was  brought  to  him  by  some  of  his 
people,  that  they  had  happened  to  meet  at  supper  Thomas 
Cranmer,  a  learned  doctor  of  Cambridge,  who  had  proposed  to 
urge  the  pope  on,  by  referring  the  case  to  all  the  learned  doc- 
tors and  bishojDs,  here  and  there  and  everywhere,  and  getting 
their  opinions  that  the  king's  marriage  was  unlawful.  The 
king,  who  was  now  in  a  hurry  to  marry  Anne  Boleyn,  thought 
that  such  a  good  idea,  that  he  sent  for  Cranmer,  post-haste,  and 
said  to  Lord  Rochfort,  Anne  Boleyn's  father,  "  Take  this  learned 
doctor  down  to  your  country-house,  and  there  let  him  have  a 
good  room  for  a  study,  and  no  end  of  books  out  of  which  to 
prove  that  t  may  marry  your  daughter."  Lord  Rochfort,  not 
at  all  reluctant,  made  the  learned  doctor  as  comfortable  as  he 
could  ;  and  the  learned  doctor  went  to  work  to  prove  his  case. 
All  this  time,  the  king  and  Anne  Boleyn  were  writing  letters  to 
one  another  almost  daily,  full  of  impatience  to  have  the  case 
settled ;  and  Anne  Boleyn  was  showing  herself  (as  I  think)  very 
worthy  of  the  fate  which  afterwards  befell  her. 

It  was  bad  for  Cardinal  Wolsey  that  he  had  left  Cranmer  to 
render  this  help.  It  was  worse  for  him  that  he  had  tried  to 
dissuade  the  king  from  marrying  Anne  Boleyn.  Such  a  servant 
as  he,  to  such  a  master  as  Henry,  would  probably  have  fallen 
in  any  case  ;  but  between  the  hatred  of  the  party  of  the  queen 
that  was,  and  the  hatred  of  the  party  of  the  queen  that  was  to 
be,  he  fell  suddenly  and  heavily.  Going  down  one  day  to  the 
court  of  chancery,  where  he  now  presided,  he  was  waited  upon 
by  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  who  told  him  that  they 
brought  an  order  to  him  to  resign  that  office,  and  to  withdraw 
quietly  to  a  house  he  had  at  Esher,  in  Surrey.  The  cardinal 
refusing,  they  rode  off  to  the  king ;  and  next  day  came  back 
with  a  letter  from  him  on  reading  which  the  cardinal  submitted. 
An  inventory  was  made  out  of  all  the  riches  in  his  palace  at 
York  Place  (now  Whitehall),  and  he  went  sorrowfully  up  the 
river  in  his  barge  to  Putney.  An  abject  man  he  was,  in  spite 
of  his  pride;  for  being  overtaken,  riding  out  of  that  place  to- 
wards Esher,  by  one  of  the  king's  chamberlains  who  brought 
him  a'  kind  message  and  a  ring,  he  alighted  from  his  mule,  took 
off  his  cap,  and  kneeled  down  in  the  dirt.  His  poor  fool,  whom 
in  his  prosperous  days  he  had  always  kept  in  his  palace  to  en- 
tertain him,  cut  a  far  better  figure  than  he  ;  for  when  the  car- 
dinal said  to  the  chamberlain  that  he  had  nothing  to  send  to 
his  lord  the  king  as  a  present  but  that  jester,  who  was  a  most 
excellent  one,  it  took  six  strong  yeomen  to  remove  the  faithful 
fool  from  his  maste*" 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  227 

The  once  proud  cardinal  was  soon  further  disgraced,  and 
wrote  the  most  abject  letters  to  his  vile  sovereign,  who  hum- 
bled him  one  day  and  encouraged  him  the  next,  according  to 
his  liumor,  until  he  was  at  last  ordered  to  go  and  reside  in  his 
diocese  of  York.  He  said  he  was  too  poor ;  but  I  don't  know 
how  he  made  that  out ;  for  he  took  a  hundred  and  sixty  ser- 
vants with  him,  and  seventy-two  cart-loads  of  furniture,  food, 
and  wine.  He  remained  in  that  part  of  the  country  for  the 
best  part  of  a  year,  and  showed  himself  so  improved  by  his  mis- 
fortunes, and  was  so  mild  and  so  conciliating,  that  he  won  all 
hearts.  And  indeed,  even  in  his  proud  days,  he  had  done 
some  magnificent  things  for  learning  and  education.  At  last 
he  was  arrested  for  high  treason  ;  and,  coming  slowly  on  his 
journey  towards  London,  got  as  far  as  Leicester.  Arriving  at 
Leicester  Abbey  after  dark,  and  very  ill,  he  said — when  the 
monks  came  out  at  the  gate  with  lighted  torches  to  receive  him 
■ — that  he  had  come  to  lay  his  bones  among  them.  He  had  in- 
deed ;  for  he  was  taken  to  a  bed,  from  which  he  never  rose 
again.  His  last  words  were,  "  Had  I  but  served  God  as 
diligently  as  I  have  served  the  king,  he  would  not  have  given 
me  over  in  my  gray  hairs.  Howbeit,  this  is  my  just  reward  for 
/ny  pains  and  diligence,  not  regarding  my  service  to  God,  but 
cnly  my  duty  to  my  prince."  The  news  of  his  death  was  quickly 
carried  to  the  king,  who  was  amusing  himself  with  archery  in 
the  garden  of  the  magnificent  palace  at  Hampton  Court,  which 
that  very  Wolsey  had  presented  to  him.  The  greatest  emotion 
/lis  royal  mind  displayed  at  the  loss  of  a  servant,  so  faithful  and 
so  ruined,  was  a  particular  desire  to  lay  hold  of  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  which  the  cardinal  was  reported  to  have  hidden  some- 
where. 

The  opinions  concerning  the  divorce,  of  the  learned  doctors 
and  bishops  and  others,  being  at  last  collected,  and  being  gen- 
erally in  the  king's  favor,  were  forwarded  to  the  pope,  with  an 
entreaty  that  he  would  now  grant  it.  The  unfortunate  pope, 
who  was  a  timid  man,  was  half  distracted  between  his  fear  of 
his  authority  being  set  aside  in  England  if  he  did  not  do  as  he 
was  asked,  and  his  dread  of  offending  the  Emperor  of  Germany, 
who  was  Queen  Catherine's  nephew.  In  this  state  of  mind  he 
still  evaded,  and  did  nothing.  Then  Thomas  Cromwell,  who 
had  been  one  of  Wolsey's  faithful  attendants,  and  had  remained 
so  even  in  his  decline,  advised  the  king  to  take  the  matter  into 
his  own  hands,  and  make  himself  the  head  of  the  whole  Church. 
This  the  king,  by  various  artful  means,  began  to  do  ;  but  he 
recompensed  the  clergy  by  allowing  theflft  to  burn  as  many 


329  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

people  as  tliey  pleased  for  holding  Luther's  opinions.  You 
must  understand  that  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  wise  man  who  had 
helped  the  king  with  his  book,  had  been  made  chancellor  in 
Wolsey's  place.  But,  as  he  was  truly  attached  to  the  Church 
as  it  was,  even  in  its  abuses,  he,  in  this  state  of  things,  resigned. 

Being  now  quite  resolved  to  get  rid  of  Queen  Catherine,  and 
to  marry  Anne  Boleyn  without  more  ado,  the  king  made  Cran- 
mer  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  directed  Queen  Catherine 
to  leave  the  court.  She  obeyed  ;  but  replied  that,  wherever  she 
went,  she  was  Queen  of  England  still,  and  would  remain  so  to 
the  last.  The  king  then  married  Anne  Boleyn  privately ;  and 
the  new  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  within  half  a  year,  declared 
his  marriage  with  Queen  Catherine  void,  and  crowned  Anne 
Boleyn  queen. 

She  might  have  known  that  no  good  could  ever  come  from 
such  wrong,  and  that  the  corpulent  brute  who  had  been  so  faith- 
less and  so  cruel  to  his  first  wife  could  be  more  faithless  and 
more  cruel  to  his  second.  She  might  have  known,  that  even 
when  he  was  in  love  with  her,  he  had  been  a  mean  and  selfish 
coward,  running  away,  like  a  frightened  cur,  from  her  society 
and  her  house,  when  a  dangerous  sickness  broke  out  in  it,  and 
when  she  might  easily  have  taken  it  and  died,  as  several  of  the 
household  did.  But  Anne  Boleyn  arrived  at  all  this  knowledge 
too  late,  and  bought  it  at  a  dear  price.  Her  bad  marriage  with 
a  worse  man  came  to  its  natural  end.  Its  natural  end  was  not, 
as  we  shall  too  soon  see,  a  natural  death  for  her. 


CHAPTER  XXVin. 

england  under  henry  the  eighth. 

Part  the  Second. 

The  pope  was  thrown  into  a  very  angry  state  of  mind  when 
he  heard  of  the  king's  marriage,  and  fumed  exceedingly.  Many 
of  the  English  monks  and  friars,  seeing  that  their  order  was  in 
danger,  did  the  same  ;  some  even  declaimed  against  the  king 
in  church,  before  his  face,  and  were  not  to  be  stopped  until  he 
himself  roared  out,  •'  Silence  ! "  The  king,  not  much  the  worse 
for  this,  took  it  pretty  quietly  \  and  was  very  glad  when  his 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH. 


229 


queen  gave  birth  to  a  daughter,  who  was  christened  Elizabeth 
and  declared  Princess  of  Wales,  as  her  sister  Mary  had  alread' 
been. 

One  of  the  most  atrocious  features  of  this  reign  was  tha» 
Henry  the  Eighth  was  always  trimming  between  the  reformea 
religion  and  the  unreformed  one  ;  so  that  the  more  he  quarrelled 
with  the  pope,  the  more  of  his  own  subjects  he  roasted  alive 
for  not  holding  the  pope's  opinion.  Thus,  an  unfortunate  stu- 
dent named  John  Frith,  and  a  poor  simple  tailor  named  Andrew 
Hewet,  who  loved  him  very  much,  and  said  that  whatever  Johr 
Frith  believed,  he  believed,  were  burnt  in  Smithfield, — to  shov 
what  a  capital  Christian  the  king  was. 

But  these  were  speedily  followed  by  two  much  greater  v*  - 
tims.  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  John  Fisher,  the  Bishop  of  Roch'^s- 
ter.  The  latter,  who  was  a  good  and  amiable  old  man,  had 
committed  no  greater  offence  than  believing  in  Elizabeth  Bar- 
ton, called  the  Maid  of  Kent, — another  of  those  ridiculous 
women  who  pretended  to  be  inspired,  and  to  make  all  sorts  of 
heavenly  revelations,  though  they  indeed  uttered  nothing  but 
evil  nonsense.  For  this  offence — as  it  was  pretended,  but 
really  for  denying  the  king  to  be  the  supreme  head  of  the 
Church — he  got  into  trouble,  and  was  put  in  prison  ;  but,  even 
then,  he  might  have  been  suffered  to  die  naturally  (short  work 
having  been  made  of  executing  the  Kentish  Maid  and  her  prin- 
cipal followers),  but  that  the  pope,  to  spite  the  king,  resolved 
lo  make  him  a  cardinal.  Upon  that  the  king  made  a  ferocious 
Joke  to  the  effect  that  the  pope  might  send  Fisher  a  red  hat 
(which  is  the  way  they  make  a  cardinal),  but  he  should  have  no 
head  on  which  to  wear  it ;  and  he  wa3  tried  with  all  unfairness 
and  injustice,  and  sentenced  to  death.  He  died  like  a  noble 
And  virtuous  old  man,  and  left  a  worthy  name  behind  him.  The 
i^ing  supposed,  I  daresay,  that  Sir  Thomas  More  would  be 
frightened  by  this  example  ;  but  as  he  was  not  easily  terrified, 
and,  thoroughly  believing  in  the  pope,  had  made  up  his  mind 
that  the  king  was  not  the  rightful  head  of  the  Church,  he  posi- 
tively refused  to  say  that  he  was.  For  this  crime,  he  too,  was 
tried  and  sentenced,  after  having  been  in  prison  a  whole  year. 
When  he  was  doomed  to  death,  and  came  away  from  his  trial 
with  the  edge  of  the  executioner's  axe  turned  towards  him, — as 
was  always  done  in  those  times  when  a  state  prisoner  came  to 
that  hopeless  pass, — he  bore  it  quite  serenely,  and  gave  his 
blessing  to  his  son,  who  pressed  through  the  crowd  in  West- 
minster Hall,  and  kneeled  down  to  receive  it.  But  when  he  got 
to  the  Tower  wharf,  on  his  way  back  to  his  prison,  and  his 


230  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

A 
favorite  daughter,  Margaret  Roper,  a  very  good  woman,  rushed 
through  the  guards  again  and  again  to  kiss  him,  and  to  weep 
upon  his  neck,  he  was  overcome  at  last.  He  soon  recovered, 
and  never  more  showed  any  feeling  but  cheerfulness  and  cour- 
age. Wh^n  he  was  going  up  the  steps  of  the  scaffold  to  his 
death,  he  said  jokingly  to  the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  observ- 
ing that  they  were  weak  and  shook  beneath  his  tread,  "  I  pray 
you.  Master  Lieutenant,  see  me  safe  up  ;  and,  for  my  coming 
down,  I  can  shift  for  himself."  Also  he  said  to  the  executioner 
after  he  had  laid  his  head  upon  the  block,  '*  Let  me  put  my 
beard  out  of  the  way  ;  for  that,  at  least,  has  never  committed 
any  treason."  Then  his  head  was  struck  off  at  a  blow.  These 
two  executions  were  worthy  of  King  Henry  the  Eighth.  Sir 
Thomas  More  was  one  of  the  most  virtuous  men  in  his  domin- 
ions, and  the  bishop  was  one  of  his  oldest  and  truest  friends. 
But  to  be  a  friend  of  that  fellow  was  almost  as  dangerous  as  to 
be  his  wife. 

When  the  news  of  these  two  murders  got  to  Rome,  the  pope 
raged  against  the  murderer  more  than  ever  pope  raged  since 
the  world  began,  and  prepared  a  bull,  ordering  his  subjects  to 
take  arms  against  him  and  dethrone  him.  The  king  took  all 
possible  precautions  to  keep  that  document  out  of  his  domin- 
ions, and  set  to  work  in  return  to  suppress  a  great  number  of 
the  English  monasteries  and  abbeys. 

This  destruction  was  begun  by  a  body  of  commissioners,  of 
whom  Cromwell  (whom  the  king  had  taken  into  great  favor) 
was  the  head  ;  and  was  carried  on  through  some  few  years  to 
its  entire  completion.  There  is  no  doubt  that  many  of  these 
religious  establishments  were  religious  in  nothing  but  in  name, 
and  were  crammed  with  lazy,  indolent,  and  sensual  monks. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  they  imposed  upon  the  people  in  every 
possible  way  ;  that  they  had  images  moved  by  wires,  which  they 
pretended  were  miraculously  moved  by  Heaven  ;  that  they  had 
among  them  a  whole  tun-measure  full  of  teeth,  all  purporting  to 
have  come  out  of  the  head  of  one  saint,  who  must  indeed  have 
been  a  very  extraordinary  person  with  that  enormous  allowance 
of  grinders  ;  that  they  had  bits  of  coal  which  they  said  had 
fried  St.  Lawrence,  and  bits  of  toe-nails  which  they  said  be- 
longed to  other  famous  saints,  penknives  and  boots  and  girdles 
which  they  said  belonged  to  others ;  and  that  all  these  bits  of 
rubbish  were  called  relics,  and  adored  by  the  ignorant  people. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  doubt,  either,  that  the 
king's  officers  and  men  punished  the  good  monks  with  the  bad  ; 
did  great  injustice  ;  demolished    many  .beautiful  things  and 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  231 

many  valuable  libraries ,  destroyed  numbers  of  paintings,  stained- 
glass  windows,  fine  pavements,  and  carvings  ;  and  that  ihe 
whole  court  were  ravenously  greedy  and  rapacious  for  the  divi- 
sion of  this  great  spoil  among  them.  The  king  seems  to  have 
grown  almost  mad  m  the  ardor  of  this  pursuit  ;  for  he  declared 
Thomas  a  Becket  a  traitor,  though  he  had  been  dead  so  manv 
years,  and  had  his  body  dug  up  out  of  his  grave.  He  mus\ 
have  been  as  miraculous  as  the  monks  pretended.  If  they  had 
told  the  truth  ;  for  he  was  found  with  one  head  on  his  shoulders, 
and  they  had  shown  another  as  his  undoubted  and  genuine 
head  ever  since  his  death  ;  it  had  brought  them  vast  sums  of 
money  too.  The  gold  and  jewels  on  his  shrine  filled  two  great 
chests,  and  eight  men  tottered  as  they  carried  them  away.  How 
rich  the  monasteries  were  you  may  infer  from  the  tact,  diat 
when  they  were  all  suppressed,  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand 
pounds  a  year — in  those  days  an  immense  sum — came  to  the 
crown. 

These  things  were  not  done  without  causing  great  discon- 
tent among  the  people.  The  monks  had  been  good  landlords 
and  hospitable  entertainers  of  all  travellers,  and  had  been  ac- 
customed to  give  away  a  great  deal  of  corn  and  fruit  and  meat 
and  other  things.  \w  those  da\  s  it  was  difficult  to  chansfe  goods 
mto  money,  in  consequence  of  the  roads  being  very  few  and 
very  bad,  and  the  carts  and  wagons  of  the  worst  description  ; 
and  they  must  either  have  given  away  some  of  the  good  things 
they  possessed  in  enormous  quanities,  or  have  suffered  them 
to  spoil  and  moulder.  So,  many  of  the  jDeople  missed  what  it 
was  more  agreeable  to  get  idly  than  to  work  for ;  and  the 
monks,  who  were  driven  out  of  their  homes  and  wandered 
about,  encouraged  their  discontent,  and  there  were,  conse- 
quently, great  risings  in  Lincolnshire  and  Yorkshire.  These 
were  put  down  by  terrific  executions,  from  which  the  monks 
themselves  did  not  escape  ;  and  the  king  went  on  grunting  and 
growling  in  his  own  fat  way,  like  a  royal  pig. 

I  have  told  this  story  of  the  religious  houses  at  one  time,  to 
make  it  plainer,  and  to  get  back  to  the  king's  domestic  aftairs. 

The  unfortunate  Queen  Catherine  was  by  this  time  dead  ; 
and  the  king  was  by  this  time  tired  of  his  second  queen  as  he 
had  been  of  his  first.  As  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Anne  when 
she  was  in  the  service  of  Catherine,  so  he  now  fell  in  love  with 
another  lady  in  the  service  of  Anne.  See  how  wicked  deeds 
are  punished  and  how  bitterly  and  self-reproachful  the  queen 
must  now  have  thought  of  her  own  rise  to  the  throne  !  The 
new  fancy  was  a  Lady  Jane  Seymour ;  and  the  king  no  sooner 


232 


A  CHTLr  S  mSTCRY  OF  ENGLAND 


set  his  mind  on  her,  than  he  resolved  to  have  Anne  Bo\eyn'» 
head.  So  he  brought  a  number  of  charges  against  Anne,  ac- 
cusing her  of  dreadful  crimes  which  she  had  never  committed, 
and  impHcating  in  them  her  own  brother  and  certain  gentlemen 
in  her  service,  am»ong  whom  one  Norris,  and  Mark  Smeaton, 
are  best  remembered.  As  the  lords  and  councillors  were  as 
afraid  of  the  king  and  as  subservient  to  him  as  the  meanest 
peasant  in  England  was,  they  brought  in  Anne  Boleyn  guilty^ 
and  the  other  unfortunate  persons  accused  with  her,  guilty  too. 
Those  gentlemen  died  like  men,  with  the  exception  of  Smeaton, 
who  had  been  tempted  by  the  king  into  telling  lies,  which  he 
called  confessions,  and  who  had  expected  to  be  pardoned  ;  but 
who,  I  am  very  glad  to  say,  was  not.  There  was  then  only  the 
queen  to  dispose  of.  She  had  been  surrounded  in  the  Tower 
with  women  spies,  had  been  monstrously  persecuted  and  foully 
slandered,  and  had  received  no  justice.  But  her  spirit  rose 
with  her  afflictions  ;  and  after  having  in  vain  tried  to  soften  the 
king  by  writing  an  affecting  letter  to  him  which  still  exists, 
"  from  her  doleful  prison  in  the  tower,"  she  resigned  herself  to 
death.  She  said  to  those  about  her,  very  cheerfully,  that  she 
had  heard  say  that  the  executioner  was  a  good  one,  and  that  she 
had  a  little  neck  (she  laughed  and  clasped  it  v.'ith  her  hands  as 
she  said  that),  and  would  soon  be  out  of  her  pain.  And  she 
was  soon  out  of  pain,  poor  creature !  on  the  green  inside  the 
Tower ;  and  her  body  was  flung  into  an  old  box,  and  put  away 
into  the  ground  under  the  chapel. 

There  is  a  story  that  the  king  sat  in  his  palace  listening 
very  anxiously  for  the  sound  of  the  cannon  which  was  to  an- 
nounce this  new  murder ;  and  that,  when  he  heard  it  come 
booming  on  the  air,  he  rose  up  in  great  spirits,  and  ordered  out 
his  dogs  to  go  a  hunting.  He  was  bad  enough  to  do  it ;  but 
whether  he  did  it  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  he  married  Jane  Sey- 
mour the  very  next  day. 

I  have  not  much  pleasure  in  recording  that  she  lived  just  long 
enough  to  give  birth  to  a  son,  who  was  christened  Edward,  and 
then  to  die  of  fever ;  for  I  cannot  but  think  that  any  woman 
who  married  such  a  ruffian,  and  knew  what  innocent  blood  was 
on  his  hands.  deser\'ed  the  axe  that  would  assuredly  have  fallen 
on  the  neck  of  Jane  Seymour  if  she  had  lived  much  longer. 

Cranmer  had  done  what  he  could  to  save  some  of  the  Church 
property  for  purposes  of  religion  and  education  ;  but  the  great 
families  had  been  so  hungry  to  get  hold  of  it,  that  very  little 
could  be  rescued  for  such  objects.  Even  Miles  Coverdale,  who 
did  the  people  the  inestimable  service  of  translating  the  Bible 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH.  233 

Into  English  (which  the  unreformed  religion  never  permitted  to 
be  done),  was  left  in  poverty  while  ihe  great  families  clutched 
the  Church  lands  and  money.  The  people  had  been  told  that, 
when  the  crown  came  into  possession  of  these  funds,  it  would 
not  be  necessary  to  tax  them  ;  but  they  were  taxed  afresh, 
directly  afterwards.  It  was  fortunate  for  them,  indeed,  that  so 
many  nobles  were  so  greedy  for  this  wealth ;  since,  if  it  had 
remained  with  the  crown,  there  might  have  been  no  end  to 
tyranny  for  hundreds  of  years.  One  of  the  most  active  writers 
on  the  Church's  side  against  the  king  was  a  member  of  his  own 
family,  a  sort  of  distant  cousin,  Reginald  Pole  by  name,  who 
attacked  him  in  the  most  violent  manner  (though  he  received  a 
pension  from  him  all  the  time),  and  fought  for  the  Church  with 
his  pen,  day  and  night.  As  he  was  beyond  the  king's  reach, 
being  in  Italy,  the  king  politely  invited  him  over  to  discuss  the 
subject ;  but  he,  knowing  better  than  to  come,  and  wisely  stay- 
ing where  he  was,  the  king's  rage  fell  upon  his  brother.  Lord 
Montague,  the  Marquis  of  Exeter,  and  some  other  gentlemen, 
who  were  tried  for  high  treason  in  corresponding  with  him  and 
aiding  him,  which  they  probably  did,  and  were  all  executed. 
The  pope  made  Reginald  Pole  a  cardinal  ;  but  so  much  against 
his  will,  that  it  is  thought  he  even  aspired  in  his  own  mind  to 
the  vacant  throne  of  England,  and  had  hopes  of  marr}dng  the 
Princess  Mary.  His  being  made  a  high  priest,  however,  put  an 
end  to  all  that.  His  mother,  the  venerable  Countess  of  Salis- 
bury, who  was,  unfortunately  for  herself,  within  the  tyrant's 
reach,  was  the  last  of  his  relatives  on  whom  his  wrath  fell. 
When  she  was  told  to  lay  her  gray  head  upon  the  block,  she 
answered  the  executioner,  "No!  my  head  never  committed 
treason,  and  if  you  want  it,  you  shall  seize  it !  "  So  she  ran 
round  and  round  the  scaffold,  with  the  executioner  striking  at 
her,  and  her  gray  hair  bedabbled  with  blood  ;  and,  even  when 
they  held  her  down  upon  the  block,  she  moved  her  head  about 
to  the  last,  resolved  to  be  no  party  to  her  own  barbarous  mur- 
der. All  this  the  people  bore,  as  they  had  borne  ever\t'.:i!.^ 
else. 

Indeed,  they  bore  much  more  ;  for  the  slow  fires  of  Smith- 
field  were  continually  burning,  and  people  were  constantly 
being  roasted  to  death, — still  to  show  what  a  good  Christian 
the  king  was.  He  defied  the  pope  and  his  bull,  which  was  now 
issued,  and  had  come  into  England  ;  but  he  burned  innumerable 
people  whose  only  offence  was  that  they  differed  from  the  pope's 
religious  opinions.  There  was  a  wretched  man  named  Lambert 
among  others,  who  was  tried  for  this  before  the  king,  and  with 


«34 


A  CHILLIS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


whom  six  bishops  argued,  one  after  another.  When  he  was 
quite  exhausted  (as  well  he  might  be,  after  six  bishops'),  he 
threw  himself  on  the  king's  mercy ;  but  the  king  blustered  out 
that  he  had  no  mercy  for  heretics.     So  he^  too,  fed  the  fire. 

All  this  the  people  bore,  and  more  than  all  this  yet.     The 
national  spirit  seems  to  have  been  banished  from  the  kingdom 
at  this  time.     The  very  people  who  were  executed  for  treason, 
the  very  wives  and  friends  of  the  "  bluff  **  king,  spoke  of  him  on 
the  scaffold  as  a  good  prince,  and  a  gentle  prince,  just  as  serfs 
in  similar   circumstances  have  been   known  to   do,  under  the 
sultan  and  bashaws  of  the  East,  or  under  the  fierce  old  tyrants 
of  Russia,  who  poured  boiling  and  freezing  water  on  them  al- 
ternately, until  they  died.     The  Parliament  was  as  bad  as  the 
rest,  and  gave  the  king  whatever  he  wanted ;  among  other  vile 
accommodations,  they  gave  him  new  powers  of  murdering,  at 
his  will  and  pleasure,  anyone  whom  he  might  choose   to  call  a 
traitor.     But  the  worst  measure  they  passed  was  an  act  of  six 
articles,  commonly  called,   at   the    time,  "  the  whip   with  six 
strings,"  which  punished  offences  against  the  pope's  opinions 
without   mercy,    and    enforced    the   very   worst    parts    of    the 
monkish   religion.      Cranmer   would    have  modified    it,   if  he 
could  ;  but,  being  overborne  by  the  Romish  party,  had  not  the 
power.     As  one  of  the  articles  declared  that  the   priest  should 
not  marry,  and  as  he  was  married  himself,  he  sent  his  wife  and 
children  into  Germany,  and  began  to   tremble  at   his   danger ; 
none  the  less  because  he  was,  and  had  long  been   the   king's 
friend.     This  whip  of  six  strings  was  made  under   the  king's 
own  eye.     It  should  never  be  forgotten  of  him  how  cruelly  he 
supported  the  worst  of  the  popish  doctrines  wlien   there  was 
nothing  to  be  got  by  opposing  them. 

This  amiable  monarch  now  thought  of  taking  another  wife. 
He  proposed  to  the  French  king  to  have  some  of  tliC  ladies  of 
the  French  court  exhibited  before  him,  that  he  might  make  his 
royal  choice ;  but  the  French  king  answered  that  he  would 
rather  not  have  his  ladies  trotted  out  to  be  shown  like  horses 
at  a  fair.  He  proposed  to  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Milan,  who 
replied  that  she  might  have  thought  of  such  a  match  if  she  had 
had  two  heads ;  but  that,  only  owning  one,  she  must  beg  to 
keep  it  safe.  At  last  Cromwell  represented  that  there  was  a 
Protestant  princess  in  Germany, — those  who  held  the  reformed 
religion  were  called  Protestants,  because  their  leaders  had  pro- 
tested against  the  abuses  and  impositions  of  the  unreformed 
church, — named  Anne  of  Cleves,  who  was  beautiful  and  would 
answer  the  purpose  admirably.     The  king  said,  Was  she  a  large 


ENGLAND  UNDER  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH, 


235 


woman  I  because  he  must  have  a  fat  wife,  "  O  yes  !  "  said 
Cromwell ;  "she  was  very  large,  just  the  thing."  On  hearing 
this,  the  king  sent  over  his  famous  painter,  Hans  Holbein,  to 
take  her  portrait.  Hans  made  her  out  to  be  so  good-looking 
that  the  king  was  satisfied,  and  the  marriage  was  arranged. 
But  whether  anybody  had  paid  Hans  to  touch  up  the  picture, 
or  whether  Hans,  like  one  or  two  other  painters,  flattered  a 
princess  in  the  ordinary  way  of  business,  I  cannot  say  ;  all  I 
know  is,  that  when  Anne  came  over,  and  the  king  went  to 
Rochester  to  meet  her,  and  first  saw  her  without  her  seeing 
him,  he  swore  she  was  "  a  great  Flanders  mare,"  and  said  he 
would  never  marry  her.  Being  obliged  to  do  it,  now  matters 
had  gone  so  far,  he  would  not  give  her  the  presents  he  had 
prepared,  and  would  never  notice  her.  He  never  forgave 
Cromwell  his  part  in  the  affair.  His  downfall  dates  from  that 
time. 

It  was  quickened  by  his  enemies,  in  the  interests  of  the  un- 
reformed  religion,  putting  in  the  king's  way,  at  a  state  dinner, 
a  niece  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Catherine  Howard,  a  young 
lady  of  fascinating  manners,  though  small  in  stature  and  not 
particularly  beautiful.  Falling  in  love  with  her  on  the  spot,  the 
king  soon  divorced  Anne  of  Cleves,  after  making  her  the  sub- 
ject of  much  brutal  talk,  on  pretence  that  she  had  been  pre- 
viously betrothed  to  some  one  else, — which  would  never  do  for 
(3ne  of  his  dignity, — and  married  Catherine.  It  is  probable 
that  on  his  wedding  day,  of  all  days  in  the  year,  he  sent  his 
faithful  Cromwell  to  the  scaffold,  and  had  his  head  struck  off. 
He  further  celebrated  the  occasion  by  burning  at  one  t:mc.  and 
causing  to  be  drawn  to  the  fire  on  the  same  hurdles,  some  Prot- 
estant prisoners  for  denying  the  pope's  doctrines,  and  some 
Roman  Catholic  prisoners  for  denying  his  own  supremacy. 
Still  the  people  bore  it,  and  not  a  gentleman  in  Englar.d 
raised  his  hand. 

But,  by  a  just  retribution,  it  soon  came  out  that  Catherine 
Howard,  before  her  marriage,  had  been  really  guilty  of  such 
crimes  as  the  king  had  falsely  attributed  to  his  second  wife, 
Anne  Boleyn  ;  so  again  the  dreadful  axe  made  the  king  a 
widower,  and  this  queen  passed  away  as  so  many  in  that  reign 
had  passed  away  before  her.  As  an  appropriate  pursuit  under 
the  circumstances,  Henry  then  applied  himself  to  superintend- 
ing the  composition  of  a  religious  book,  called  "  A  Necessary 
Doctrine  for  any  Christian  Man."  He  must  have  been  a  little 
confused  in  his  mind,  I  think,  at  about  this  period  ;  for  he  was  so 
talse  to  himself  as  tc  beirue  to  some  one, — that  some  one  being 


236  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAATD. 

Cranmer,  whom  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  others  of  his  enemies 
tried  to  ruin,  but  to  whom  the  king  was  steadfast,  and  to  whom 
he  one  night  gave  his  ring,  charging  him,  when  he  should  hnd 
himself,  next  day,  accused  of  treason,  to  show  it  to  the  council 
board.  This  Cranmer  did,  to  the  confusion  of  his  enemies.  1 
suppose  the  king  thought  he  might  want  him  a  little  longer. 

He  married  yet  once  more.  Yes ;  strange  to  say,  he  found 
in  England  another  woman  who  would  become  his  wife ;  and 
she  was  Catherine  Parr,  widow  of  Lord  Latimer.  She  leaned 
towards  the  reformed  religion  ;  and  it  is  some  comfort  to  know, 
that  she  tormented  the  king  considerably  by  arguing  a  variety 
of  doctrinal  points  with  him  on  all  possible  occasions.  She 
had  very  nearly  done  this  to  her  own  destruction.  After  one 
of  these  conversations,  the  king,  in  a  very  black  mood,  actually 
instructed  Gardiner,  one  of  the  bishops  who  favored  the  popish 
opinions,  to  draw  a  bill  of  accusation  against  her,  which  would 
have  inevitably  brought  her  to  the  scaffold  where  her  predeces- 
sors had  died,  but  that  one  of  her  friends  picked  up  the  paper  of 
instructions  which  had  been  dropped  in  the  palace,  and  gave 
her  timely  notice.  She  fell  ill  with  terror ;  but  managed  the 
king  so  well  when  he  came  to  entrap  her  into  further  state- 
ments,— by  saying  that  she  had  only  spoken  on  such  points  to 
divert  his  mind,  and  to  get  some  information  from  his  ex- 
traordinary wisdom, — that  he  gave  her  a  kiss,  and  called  her  his 
sweetheart.  And  when  the  chancellor  came  next  day,  actually 
to  take  her  to  the  Tower,  the  king  sent  him  about  his  business, 
and  honored  him  with  the  epithets  of  a  beast,  a  knave,  and  a 
fool.  So  near  was  Catherine  Parr  to  the  block,  and  so  narrow 
was  her  escape ! 

There  was  war  with  Scotland  in  this  reign,  and  a  short, 
clumsy  war  with  France  for  favoring  Scotland  ;  but  the  events 
at  home  were  so  dreadful,  and  leave  such  an  enduring  stain 
on  the  country,  that  I  need  say  no  more  of  what  happened 
abroad. 

A  few  more  horrors,  and  this  reign  is  over.  There  was  a 
lady,  Anne  Askew,  in  Lincolnshire,  who  inclined  to  the  Protes- 
tant opinions,  and  whose  husband,  being  a  fierce  Catholic, 
turned  her  out  of  the  house.  She  came  to  London,  and  was 
considered  as  offending  against  the  six  articles,  and  was  taken 
to  the  Tower,  and  put  upon  the  rack, — probably  because  it  was 
hoped  she  might,  in  her  agony,  criminate  some  obnoxious  per- 
sons ;  if  falsely,  so  much  the  better.  She  was  tortured  without 
uttering  a  cry,  until  the  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower  would  suffer 
his  men  to  torture  her  no  more ;  and  then  two  priests,  who 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SIXTH.  237 

were  present,  actually  pulled  off  their  robes,  and  turned  the 
wheels  of  the  rack  with  their  own  hands,  so  rending  and  twist- 
ing and  breaking  her  that  she  was  afterwards  carried  to  the 
fire  in  a  chair.  She  was  burned  with  tliree  others, — a  gentle- 
man, a  clergyman,  and  a  tailor ;  and  so  the  world  went  on. 

Either  the  king  became  afraid  of  the  power  of  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  and  his  son,  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  or  they  gave  him  some 
offence  ;  but  he  resolved  to  pull  thein  down,  to  follow  all  the 
rest  who  were  gone.  The  son  was  tried  first, — of  course  foT 
nothing, — and  defended  himself  bravely  ;  but  of  course  he  was 
found  guilty,  and  of  course  he  was  executed.  Then  his  father 
was  laid  hold  of,  and  left  for  death  too. 

But  the  king  himself  was  left  for  death  by  a  greater  King, 
and  the  earth  was  to  be  rid  of  him  at  last.  He  was  now  a 
swollen,  hideous  spectacle,  with  a  great  hole  in  his  leg,  and  so 
odious  to  every  sense  that  it  was  dreadful  to  approach  him. 
When  he  was  found  to  be  dying,  Cranmer  was  sent  for  from 
his  palace  at  Croydon,  and  came  with  all  speed,  but  found  him 
speechless.  Happily,  in  that  hour  he  perished.  He  was  in 
the  fifth-sixth  year  of  his  age,  and  thirty-eighth  of  his  reign. 

Henry  the  Eighth  has  been  favored  by  some  Protestant 
writers,  because  the  Reformation  was  achieved  in  his  time. 
But  the  mighty  merit  of  it  lies  with  other  men,  and  not  with 
him ;  and  it  can  be  rendered  none  the  worse  by  this  monster's 
crimes,  and  none  the  better  by  any  defence  of  them.  The 
plain  truth  is,  that  he  was  a  most  intolerable  ruffian,  a  disgrace 
to  human  nature,  and  a  blot  of  blood  and  grease  upon  the  his- 
tory of  England. 


CHAPTER  XXIX, 

ENGLAND   UNDER   EDWARD   THE   SIXTH. 

Henry  the  Eighth  had  made  a  will,  appointing  a  counci\ 
of  sixteen  to  govern  the  kingdom  for  his  son  while  he  was  undei 
age  (he  was  now  only  ten  years  old),  and  another  council  ol 
twelve  to  help  them.  The  most  powerful  of  the  first  council 
was  the  Earl  of  Hertford,  the  young  king's  uncle,  who  lost  no 
time  in  bringing  his  nephew  with  great  state  up  to  Enfield,  and 
thence  to  the  Tower.     It  was  considered,  at  the  time,  a  strik- 


238  d  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

ing  proof  of  virtue  in  the  young  king  that  he  was  sorry  for  his 
father's  death  ;  but  as  common  subjects  have  that  virtue  too, 
sometimes,  we  will  say  no  more  about  it. 

There  was  a  curious  part  of  the  late  king's  will,  requiring 
his  executors  to  fulfil  whatever  promises  he  had  made.  Some 
of  the  court  wondering  what  these  might  be,  the  Earl  of  Hert- 
ford and  the  other  noblemen  interested  said  that  they  were 
promises  to  advance  and  enrich  them.  So  the  Earl  of  Hertford 
made  himself  Duke  of  Somerset,  and  made  his  brother  Edward 
Seymour  a  baron  ;  and  there  were  various  similar  promotions 
all  very  agreeable  to  the  parties  concerned,  and  very  dutiful, 
no  doubt,  to  the  late  king's  memory.  To  be  more  dutiful  still, 
they  made  themselves  rich  out  of  the  Church  lands,  and  were 
very  comfortable.  The  new  Duke  of  Sc/merset  caused  himself 
to  be  declared  Protector  of  the  kingdom,  and  was,  indeed,  the 
king. 

As  young  Edward  the  Sixth  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
principles  of  the  Protestant  religion,  everybody  knew  that  they 
would  be  maintained.  But  Cranmer,  to  whom  they  were  chiefly 
intrusted,  advanced  them  steadily  and  temperately.  Many 
superstitious  and  ridiculous  practices  were  stopped ;  but  prac- 
tices which  were  harmless  were  not  interfered  with. 

The  Duke  of  Somerset,  the  Protector,  was  anxious  to  have 
the  young  king  engaged  in  marriage  to  the  young  Queen  of 
Scotland,  in  order  to  prevent  that  princess  from  making  an  al- 
liance with  any  foreign  power  ;  but,  as  a  large  party  in  Scotland 
were  unfavorable  to  this  plan,  he  invaded  that  country.  His 
excuse  for  doing  so  was,  that  the  Border-men — that  is,  the 
Scotch  who  lived  in  that  part  of  the  country  where  England 
and  Scotland  joined — troubled  the  English  very  much.  But 
there  were  two  sides  to  this  question ;  for  the  English  Border- 
men  troubled  the  Scotch  too  ;  and,  through  many  long  years, 
there  were  perpetual  Border  quarrels,  which  gave  rise  to  num- 
bers of  old  tales  and  songs.  However,  the  Protector  invaded 
Scotland  ;  and  Arran,  Scottish  Regent,  with  an  army  twice  as 
large  as  his,  advanced  to  meet  him.  They  encountered  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  Esk,  within  a  few  miles  of  Edinburgh  ;  and 
there,  after  a  little  skirmish,  the  Protector  made  such  moderate 
proposals,  in  offering  to  retire  if  the  Scotch  would  only  engage 
not  to  marry  their  princess  to  any  foreign  prince,  that  the 
regent  thought  the  English  were  afraid.  But  in  this  he  made 
a  horrible  mistake  ;  for  the  English  soldiers  on  land,  and  the 
English  sailors  on  the  water,  so  set  upon  the  Scotch,  that  they 
broke  and  fled,  and  more  than  ten   thousand  of  them  were 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SIXTH. 


239 


killed.  It  was  a  dreadful  battle,  for  the  fugitives  were  slain 
without  mercy.  The  ground  for  four  miles,  all  the  way  to  Edin- 
burgh, was  strewn  with  dead  men,  and  with  arms  and  legs  and 
heads.  Some  hid  themselves  in  streams,  and  were  drowned  , 
some  threw  away  their  armor,  and  were  killed  running,  almost 
naked  ;  but  in  this  battle  of  Pinkey  the  English  lost  only  two 
or  three  hundred  men.  They  were  much  better  clothed  than 
the  Scotch,  at  the  poverty  of  whose  appearance  and  country 
they  were  exceedingly  astonished. 

A  parliament  was  called  when  Somerset  came  back  ;  and 
it  repealed  the  whip  with  six  strings,  and  did  one  or  two  other 
good  things  ;  though  it  unhappily  retained  the  punishment  of 
burning  for  those  people  who  did  not  make  believe  to  believe, 
in  all  religious  matters,  what  the  government  had  declared  that 
they  must  and  should  believe.  It  also  made  a  foolish  law 
(meant  to  put  down  beggars),  that  any  man  who  lived  idly,  and 
loitered  about  for  three  days  together,  should  be  burned  with  a 
hot  iron,  made  a  slave,  and  wear  an  iron  fettei.  But  this  sav- 
age absurdity  soon  came  to  an  end,  and  went  the  way  of  a  great 
many  other  foolish  laws. 

The  Protector  was  now  so  proud,  that  he  sat  in  parliament 
before  all  the  nobles,  on  the  right  hand  of  the  throne.  Many 
other  noblemen,  who  only  wanted  to  be  as  proud  if  they  could 
get  a  chance,  became  his  enemies  of  course  ;  and  it  is  supposed 
that  he  came  hack  suddenly  from  Scotland  because  he  had 
received  news  that  his  brother,  Lord  Seymour,  was  becoming 
dangerous  to  him.  This  lord  was  now  High  Admiral  of  Eng- 
land ;  a  very  handsome  man,  and  a  great  favorite  with  the 
court  ladies, — even  with  the  young  Princess  Elizabeth,  who 
romped  with  him  a  little  more  than  young  princesses  in  these 
times  do  with  any  one.  He  had  married  Catherine  Parr,  the 
late  king's  widow,  who  was  now  dead  ;  and,  to  strengthen  his 
power,  he  secretly  supplied  the  young  king  with  money.  He 
may  even  have  engaged  with  some  of  his  brother's  enemies  in 
a  plot  to  carry  the  boy  off.  On  these  and  other  accusations, 
at  any  rate,  he  was  confined  in  the  Tower,  impeached,  and 
found  guilty  ;  his  own  brother's  name  being — unnatural  and 
sad  to  tell — the  first  signed  to  the  warrant  for  Lis  execution. 
He  was  executed  on  Tower  Hill,  and  died  denying  his  treason. 
One  of  his  last  proceedings  in  this  world  was  to  write  two  let- 
ters, one  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  and  one  to  the  Princess 
Mary,  which  a  servant  of  his  took  charge  of,  and  concealed  in 
his  shoe.  These  letters  are  supposed  to  have  urged  them 
against  his  brother,  and  to  revenge  his  death.     What  they  truly 


34»  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

contained  is  not  known  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  had,  at 
one  time,  obtained  great  influence  over  the  Princess  Elizabeth. 

All  this  while  the  Protestant  religion  was  making  progress. 
The  images  which  the  people  had  gradually  come  to  worship 
were  removed  from  the  churches  ;  the  people  were  informed 
that  they  need  not  confess  themselves  to  priests  unless  they 
chose ;  a  common  prayer-book  was  drawn  up  in  the  English 
language,  which  all  could  understand  ;  and  many  other  improve- 
ments were  made, — still  moderately  ;  for  Cranmer  was  a  very 
moderate  man,  and  even  restrained  the  Protestant  clergy  from 
violently  abusing  the  unreformed  religion,  as  they  very  often 
did,  and  which  was  not  a  good  example.  But  the  people  were 
s«-t  this  time  in  great  distress.  The  rapacious  nobility  who  had 
come  into  possession  of  the  Church  lands  were  very  ba"d  land- 
lords. They  enclosed  great  quantities  of  ground  for  the  feed- 
ing of  sheep,  which  was  then  more  profitable  than  the  growing 
of  crops  j  and  this  increased  the  general  distress.  So  the  peo- 
ple, who  still  understood  little  of  what  was  going  on  about 
them,  and  still  readily  believed  what  the  homeless  monks  told 
them, — many  of  whom  had  been  their  good  friends  in  their 
better  days, — took  it  into  their  heads  that  all  this  was  owing  to 
the  reformed  religion,  and  therefore  rose  in  many  parts  of  the 
country. 

The  most  powerful  risings  were  in  Devonshire  and  Norfolk. 
In  Devonshire,  the  rebellion  v/as  so  strong  that  ten  thousand 
men  united  within  a  few  days,  and  even  laid  siege  to  Exeter. 
But  Lord  Russell,  coming  to  the  assistance  of  the  citizens  who 
defended  that  town,  defeated  the  rebels  ;  and  not  only  hanged 
the  mayor  of  one  place,  but  hanged  the  vicar  of  another  from 
his  own  church  steeple.  What  with  hanging,  and  killing  by 
the  sword,  four  thousand  of  the  rebels  are  supposed  to  have 
fallen  in  that  one  county.  In  Norfolk  (where  the  rising  was 
more  against  the  enclosure  of  open  lands  than  against  the 
reformed  religion),  the  popular  leader  was  a  man  named  Robert 
Ket,  a  tanner  of  Wymondham  The  mob  were,  in  the  first 
instance,  excited  against  the  tanner  by  one  John  Flowerdew,  a 
gentleman  who  owed  him  a  grudge  ;  but  the  tanner  was  more 
than  a  match  for  the  gentleman,  since  he  soon  got  the  people 
on  his  side,  and  established  himself  near  Norwich,  with  quite 
an  army.  There  was  a  large  oak-tree  in  that  place,  on  a  spot 
called  Household  Hill,  which  Ket  named  the  Tree  of  Refor- 
mation ;  and  under  its  green  boughs,  he  and  his  men  sat  in  the 
midsummer  weather,  holding  courts  of  justice,  and  debating 
affairs  of  state.     They  were  even  impartial  enough  to  allow 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SIXTH. 


241 


some  rather  tiresome  public  speakers  to  get  up  into  this  Tree 
of  Reformation,  and  point  out  their  errors  to  them  in  long  dis- 
courses, while  they  lay  listening  (not  always  without'  some 
grumbling  and  growling)  in  the  shade  below.  At  last,  one 
sunny  July  day,  a  herald  appeared  below  the  tree,  and  pro- 
claimed Ket  and  all  his  men  traitors,  unless  from  that  moment 
they  dispersed  and  went  home  j  in  which  case  they  were  to 
receive  a  pardon.  But  Ket  and  his  men  made  light  of  the 
herald,  and  became  stronger  than  ever,  until  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick went  after  them  with  a  sufficient  force,  and  cut  them  all 
to  pieces.  A  few  were  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  as  trai- 
tors ;  and  their  limbs  were  sent  into  various  country  places  to 
be  a  terror  to  the  people.  Nine  of  them  were  hanged  upon 
nine  green  branches  of  the  Oak  of  Reformation  ;  and  so,  for 
the  time,  that  tree  may  be  said  to  have  withered  away. 

The  Protector,  though  a  haughty  man,  had  compassion  for 
the  real  distresses  of  the  common  people,  and  a  sincere  desire 
to  help  them.  But  he  was  too  proud  and  too  high  in  degree 
to  hold  even  their  favor  steadily ;  and  many  of  the  nobles 
always  envied  and  hated  him,  because  they  were  as  proud  and 
not  as  high  as  he.  He  was  at  this  time  building  a  great  palace 
in  the  Strand ;  to  get  the  stone  for  which  he  blew  up  church- 
steeples  with  gunpowder,  and  pulled  down  bishop's  houses  ; 
thus  making  himself  still  more  disliked.  At  length,  his  princi- 
pal enemy,  the  Earl  of  Warwick, — Dudley  by  name,  and  the 
son  of  that  Dudley  who  had  made  himself  so  odious  with 
Empson,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh, — joined  with  seven 
other  members  of  the  council  against  him,  formed  a  separate 
council,  and,  becoming  stronger  in  a  few  days,  sent  him  to  the 
lower  under  twenty-nine  articles  of  accusation.  After  being 
sentenced  by  the  council  to  the  forfeiture  of  all  his  offices  and 
lands,  he  was  liberated  and  pardoned  on  making  a  very  hum- 
ble submission.  He  was  even  taken  back  into  the  council 
again,  after  having  suffered  this  fall,  and  married  his  daughter, 
Lady  Anne  Seymour,  to  Warwick's  eldest  son.  But  such  a. 
reconciliation  was  little  likely  to  last,  and  did  not  outlive  a 
year.  Warwick,  having  got  himself  made  Duke  of  Northum- 
berland, and  having  advanced  the  more  important  of  his 
friends,  then  finished  the  history  by  causing  the  Duke  of  Somer- 
set and  his  friend  Lord  Grey,  and  others,  to  be  arrested  foi 
treason,  in  having  conspired  to  seize  and  dethrone  the  king. 
They  were  also  accused  of  having  intended  to  seize  the  new 
Duke  of  Northumberland,  with  his  friends.  Lord  Northampton 
and  Lord  Pembroke,  to  murder  them  if  they  found  need,  and 
t6 


242  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

to  raise  the  city  to  revolt.  All  this  the  fallen  Protector  pos 
itively  denied  \  except  that  he  confessed  to  having  spoken  of 
the  murder  of  those  three  noblemen,  but  having  never  designed 
it.  He  was  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  treason,  and  found  guilty 
of  the  other  charges  ;  so  when  the  people — who  remembered 
his  having  been  their  friend,  now  that  he  was  disgraced  and  in 
danger — saw  him  come  out  from  his  trial  with  the  axe  turned 
from  him,  they  thought  he  was  altogether  acquitted,  and  set  up 
a  loud  shout  of  joy. 

But  the  Duke  of  Somerset  was  ordered  to  be  beheaded  on 
Tower  Hill,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  proclamations 
were  issued  bidding  the  citizens  keep  at  home  until  after  ten. 
They  filled  the  streets,  however,  and  crowded  the  place  of 
execution  as  soon  as  it  was  light ;  and,  with  sad  faces  and  sad 
hearts,  saw  the  once  powerful  Protector  ascend  the  scaffold  to 
lay  his  head  upon  the  dreadful  block.  While  he  was  yet  say- 
ing his  last  words  to  them  with  manly  courage,  and  telling 
them  in  particular  how  it  comforted  him,  at  that  pass,  to  have 
assisted  in  reforming  the  national  religion,  a  member  of  the 
council  was  seen  riding  up  on  horseback.  They  again  thought 
that  the  duke  was  saved  by  his  bringing  a  reprieve,  and  again 
shouted  for  joy.  But  the  duke  himself  told  them  they  were 
mistaken,  and  laid  down  his  head  and  had  it  struck  off  at  a 
blow. 

Many  of  the  bystanders  rushed  forward,  and  steeped  their 
handkerchiefs  in  his  blood,  as  a  mark  of  their  affection.  He 
had,  indeed,  been  capable  of  many  good  acts,  and  one  of  them 
was  discovered  after  he  was  no  more.  The  Bishop  of  Durham,  a 
very  good  man,  had  been  informed  against  to  the  council,  when 
the  duke  was  in  power,  as  having  answered  a  treacherous  letter 
proposing  a  rebellion  against  the  reformed  religion.  As  the 
answer  could  not  be  found,  he  could  not  be  declared  guilty ; 
bnt  it  was  now  discovered,  hidden  by  the  duke  himself  among 
some  private  papers,  in  his  regard  for  that  good  man.  The 
bishop  lost  his  office,  and  was  deprived  of  his  possessions. 

It  is  not  very  pleasant  to  know  that  while  his  uncle  lay  in 
prison  under  sentence  of  death,  tne  young  king  was  being  vastly 
entertained  by  plays  and  dances  and  sham  fights ;  but  there  is 
no  doubt  of  it,  for  he  kept  a  journal  himself.  It  is  pleasanter 
to  know  that  not  a  single  Roman  Catholic  was  burnt  in  this  reign 
for  holding  that  religion  ;  though  two  wretched  victims  suffered 
for  heresy.  One,  a  woman  named  Joan  Bocher,  for  professing 
some  opinions  that  even  she  could  only  explain  in  unintelligible 
jargon.     The  o^ther,  a  Dutchman,  named  Von  Paris,  who  prac- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  EDWARD  THE  SIXTH,  243 

tised  as  a  surgeon  in  London.  Edward  was  to  his  credit,  ex- 
ceedingly unwilling  to  sign  the  warrant  for  the  woman's  execu- 
tion, shedding  tears  before  he  did  so,  and  telling  Cranmer,  who 
urged  him  to  do  it  (though  Cranmer  really  would  have  spared 
the  woman  at  first,  but  for  her  own  determined  obstinacy),  that 
the  guilt  was  not  his,  but  that  of  the  man  who  so  strongly 
urged  the  dreadful  act.  We  shall  see,  too  soon,  v\hether  the 
time  ever  came  when  Cranmer  is  likely  to  have  remembered 
this  with  sorrow  and  remorse. 

Cranmer  and  Ridley  (as  first  Bishop  of  Rochester,  and  after- 
wards Bishop  of  London)  were  the  most  powerful  of  the  clergy 
of  this  reign.  Others  were  imprisoned  and  deprived  of  their 
property  for  still  adhering  to  the  unreformed  religion  ;  the  most 
important  among  whom  were  Gardiner,  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
Heath,  Bishop  of  Worcester,  Day,  Bishop  of  Chichester,  and 
Bonner,  that  Bishop  of  London  wliO  was  superseded  by  Ridlc}-. 
The  Princess  Mary,  who  inherited  her  mother's  gloomy  temper 
and  hated  the  reformed  religion  as  connected  with  her  mother's 
wrongs  and  sorrows, — she  knew  nothing  else  about  it,  always 
refusing  to  read  a  single  book  in  which  it  was  truly  described, 
— held  by  the  unreformed  religion  too,  and  was  the  only  person 
in  the  kingdom  for  whom  the  old  mass  was  allowed  to  be  per- 
formed ;  nor  would  the  young  king  have  made  that  exception 
even  in  her  favor,  but  for  the  strong  persuasions  of  Cranmer 
and  Ridley.  He  always  viewed  it  with  horror  ;  and  when  he 
fell  into  a  sickly  condition,  after  having  been  very  ill,  first  of 
the  measles  and  then  of  the  small-pox,  he  was  greatly  troubled 
in  mind  to  think  that  if  he  died,  and  slie,  the  next  heir  to  the 
throne,  succeeded,  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  would  be  set 
up  again. 

This  uneasiness,  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  was  not  slow 
to  encourage  ;  for  if  the  Princess  Mary  came  to  the  throne,  he, 
who  had  taken  part  with  the  Protestants,  was  sure  to  be  dis- 
graced. Now  the  Duchess  of  Suffolk  was  descended  from  King 
Henry  the  Seventh  ;  and  if  she  resigned  what  little  or  no  right 
she  had,  in  favor  of  her  daughter,  Lady  Jane  Grey,  that  would 
be  the  succession  to  promote  the  duke's  greatness  ;  because 
Lord  Guilford  Dudley,  one  of  his  sons,  was,  at  this  very  time, 
newly  married  to  her.  So  he  worked  upon  the  king's  fears,  and 
persuaded  him  to  set  aside  both  the  Princess  Mary  and  the 
Princess  Elizabeth,  and  assert  his  right  to  appoint  his  successor. 
Accordingly  the  young  king  handed  to  the  crown  lawyers  a 
writing  signed  half  a  dozen  times  over  by  himself,  appointing 
Lady  Jane  Grey  to  succeed  to  the  crown  ;  and  requiring  them  to 


244  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

have  his  will  made  out  according  to  law.  They  were  much 
against  it  at  first,  and  told  the  king  so  ;  but  the  Duke  of  North- 
unberland  being  so  violent  about  it  that  the  lawyers  even  ex- 
pected him  to  beat  them,  and  hotly  declaring  that,  stripped  to 
his  shirt,  he  would  fight  any  man  in  such  a  quarrel,  they  yielded. 
Cranmer  also  at  first  hesitated  ;  pleading  that  he  had  sworn  to 
maintain  the  succession  of  the  crown  to  the  Princess  Mary  ;  but 
he  was  a  weak  man  in  his  resolutions,  and  afterwards  signed 
the  document  with  the  rest  of  the  council. 

It  was  completed  none  too  soon  ;  for  Edward  was  now  sink- 
ing in  a  rapid  decline ;  and,  by  way  of  making  him  better,  they 
handed  him  over  to  a  woman-doctor  who  pretended  to  be  able 
to  cure  it.  He  speedily  got  worse.  On  the  6th  of  July,  in  the 
year  1553,  he  died,  very  peaceably  and  piously,  praying  God, 
with  his  last  breath,  to  protect  the  reformed  religion. 

The  king  died  in  the  sixteenth  year  of  his  age,  and  in  the 
seventh  of  his  reign.  It  Is  difficult  to  judge  what  the  character 
of  one  so  young  might  afterwards  have  become  among  so  many 
bad,  ambitious,  quarrelling  nobles.  But  he  was  an  amiable  boy, 
of  very  good  abilities,  and  had  nothing  coarse  or  cruel  or  brutal 
in  his  disposition,  which  in  the  son  of  such  a  father  is  rather 
surprising. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   MARY. 


The  Duke  of  Northumberland  was  very  anxious  to  keep  the 
young  king's  death  a  secret,  in  order  that  he  might  get  the  two 
princesses  into  his  power.  But  the  Princess  Mary,  being  in- 
formed of  that  event  as  she  was  on  her  way  to  London  to  see 
her  sick  brother,  turned  her  horse's  head,  and  rode  away  into 
Norfolk.  The  Earl  of  Arundel  was  her  friend  ;  and  it  was  he 
who  sent  her  warning  of  what  had  happened. 

As  the  secret  could  not  be  kept,  the  Duke  of  Northum- 
berland and  the  council  sent  for  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London, 
and  some  of  the  aldermen,  and  made  a  merit  of  telling  it  to 
them.  Then  they  made  it  known  to  the  people,  and  set  off  to 
inform  Lady  Jane  Grey  that  she  was  to  be  queen. 

She  was  a  pretty  girl  of  only  sixteen,  and  was  amiable, 


ENGLAND  UNDER  MARY.  24^ 

learned,  and  clever.  When  the  lords  who  came  to  her  fell  on 
their  knees  before  her,  and  told  her  what  tidinofs  thev  brought, 
she  was  so  astonished  that  she  fainted.  On  recovering  she  ex- 
pressed her  sorrow  for  the  young  king's  death,  and  said  that 
she  knew  she  was  unfit  to  govern  the  kingdom  ;  but  that,  if  she 
must  be  queen,  she  prayed  God  to  direct  her.  She  was  then  at 
Sion  House,  near  Brentford ;  and  the  lords  took  her  down  the 
river  in  state  to  the  Tower,  that  she  mii,dn  remain  there  (as  the 
custom  was)  until  she  was  crowned.  But  the  people  were  not 
at  all  favorable  to  Ladv  Jane,  considering  that  the  right  to  be 
queen  was  Mary's,  and  greatly  disliking  the  Duke  of  North- 
umberland. Tiiey  were  not  put  into  a  better  humor  by  the 
duke's  causing  a  vintner's  servant,  one  Gabriel  Pot,  to  be  taken 
up  for  expressing  his  dissatisfaciion  among  the  crowd,  and  to 
have  his  ears  nailed  to  the  pillory,  and  cut  off.  Some  powerful 
men  among  the  nobility  declared  on  Mary's  side.  They  raised 
troops  to  support  her  cause,  had  her  proclaimed  queen  at  Nor- 
wich, and  gathered  around  her  at  the  Castle  of  Framlingham, 
which  belonged  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk.  For  she  was  not  con- 
sidered so  safe  as  yet,  but  that  it  was  best  to  keep  her  in  a 
castle  on  the  sea-coast,  fiom  whence  she  might  be  sent  abroad 
if  necessary. 

The  council  would  have  despatched  Lady  Jane's  father,  the 
Duke  of  Suffolk,  as  the  general  of  the  army,  against  this  force  ; 
but  as  Lady  Jane  implored  that  her  father  might  remain  w  ih 
her,  and  he  was  known  to  be  but  a  \\eak  man,  they  told  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland  that  he  must  take  the  command  him- 
self. He  was  not  very  ready  to  do  so,  as  he  mistrusted  the 
council  much;  but  there  was  no  help  for  it,  and  he  set  forth 
with  a  heavy  heart,  observing  to  a  lord  who  rode  beside  h.im 
through  Shoreditch  at  the  head  of  the  troops,  that,  although  the 
people  pressed  in  great-  numbers  to  look  at  them,  they  were 
terribly'silent. 

And  his  fears  for  himself  turned  out  to  be  well  founded. 
While  he  was  waiting  at  Cambridge  for  further  help  from  the 
council,  the  council  took  it  into  their  heads  to  turn  their  backs 
on  Lady  Jane's  cause,  and  to  take  up  the  Princess  Mary's. 
This  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  before-mentioned  Earl  of  Arundel, 
who  represented  to  the  lord  mayor  and  aldermen,  in  a  second 
interview  with  those  sagacious  persons,  that  as  for  himself,  he 
did  not  perceive  the  reformed  religion  to  be  in  much  danger, — 
which  Lord  Pembroke  backed  by  flourishing  his  sword  as  an- 
other kind  of  persuasion.  The  lord  mayor  and  aldermen  thus 
enlightened,  said  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  Princess 


^^6  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  FXGLAKD. 

Mary  ought  to  be  queen.  So  she  was  proclaimed  at  the  Cross 
by  St.  Paul's  ;  and  barrels  of  wine  were  given  to  the  people, 
and  they  got  very  drunk,  and  danced  ro.ind  blazing  bonfires, 
little  thinking,  poor  wretches,  what  other  bonfires  would  soon 
be  blazing  in  Queen  Mary's  name. 

"  After  a  ten-days'  dream  of  royalty.  Lady  Jane  Grey  re- 
signed the  crown  with  great  willingness,  saying  that  she  had  only 
accepted  it  in  obedience  to  her  father  and  mother,  and  went 
gladly  back  1o  her  pleasant  house  by  the  river,  and  her  books. 
Mary  then  came  on  towards  London ;  and  at  Wanstead,  In 
Essex  was  joined  by  her  half-sister,  the  Princess  Elizabeth. 
They  passed  through  the  streets  of  London  to  the  Tower ;  and 
there  the  new  queen  met  some  eminent  prisoners  then  confined 
in  it,  kissed  them,  and  gave  them  their  liberty.  Among  these 
was  that  Gardiner,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  who  had  been  im- 
prisoned in  the  last  reign  for  holding  to  the  unreformed  religion. 
Him  she  soon  made  chancellor. 

The  Dake  of  Northumberland  had  been  taken  prisoner, 
and  together  with  his  son  and  five  others,  was  quickly  brought 
before  the  council.  He,  not  unnaturally,  asked  that  council, 
in  his  defence,  whether  it  was  treason  to  obey  orders  that  had 
been  issued  under  the  great  seal ;  and,  if  it  were,  whether  they, 
who  had  obeyed  them  too,  ought  to  be  his  judges  ?  But  they 
made  light  of  these  points  ;  and,  being  resolved  to  have  him 
out  of  the  way,  soon  sentenced  him  to  death.  He  had  risen 
into  power  upon  the  death  of  another  man,  and  made  but  a 
poor  show  (as  might  be  expected)  when  he  himself  lay  low. 
He  entreated  Gardiner  to  let  him  live,  if  it  were  only  in  a  mouse's 
hole  ;  and  when  he  ascended  the  scaffold  to  be  beheaded  on 
Tower  Hill,  addressed  the  people  in  a  miserable  way,  saying 
that  he  had  been  incited  by  others,  and  exhorting  them  to  re- 
turn to  the  unreformed  religion,  which  he  told  them  was  his 
faith.  There  seems  reason  to  support  that  he  expected  a  par- 
don even  then,  in  return  for  this  confession  ;  but  it  matters 
little  whether  he  did  or  not.     His  head  was  struck  off. 

Mary  was  now  crowned  queen.  She  was  thirty-seven  years 
of  age,  short  and  thin,  wrinkled  in  the  face,  and  very  un- 
healthy. But  she  had  a  great  liking  for  show  and  for  bright 
colors,  and  all  the  ladies  of  the  court  were  magnificently 
dressed.  She  had  a  great  liking,  too,  for  old  customs,  without 
much  sense  in  them  ;  and  she  was  oiled  in  the  oldest  v/ay, 
and  blessed  in  the  oldest  way,  and  done  all  manner  of  things 
too  in  the  oldest  way,  at  her  coronation.  I  hope  they  did  her 
good. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  MARY.  247 

She  soon  began  to  show  her  desire  to  put  down  the  reformed 
religion,  and  put  up  the  unreformed  one  ;  tlioughit  was  dan- 
gerous work  as  yet,  the  people  being  something  wiser  than  they 
used  to  be.  They  even  cast  a  shower  of  stones — and  among 
them  a  dagger — at  one  of  the  royal  chaplains  who  attacked 
the  reformed  religion  in  a  public  sermon  But  the  queen  and 
her  priests  went  steadily  on.  Ridley,  the  powerful  bishop  of 
the  last  reign,  was  seized  and  sent  to  the  Tower.  Latimer,  also 
celebrated  among  the  clergy  of  the  last  reign,  was  likewise 
sent  to  the  Tower,  and  Cranmer  speedily  followed.  Latimer 
was  an  aged  man;  and  as  his  guards  took  him  through  Smith- 
field,  he  looked  round  it,  and  said,  "  This  is  a  place  that  hath 
long  groaned  for  me."  For  he  knew  well  what  kind  of  bonfires 
would  soon  be  burning.  Nor  was  the  knowledge  confined  to 
him.  The  prisons  were  fast  filled  with  the  chief  Protestants, 
who  were  there  left  rotting  in  darkness,  hunger,  dirt,  and  sep- 
aration from  their  friends ;  many,  who  had  time  left  them  for 
escape,  fled  from  the  kingdom,  and  the  dullest  of  the  people 
began  now  to  see  what  was  coming. 

It  came  on  fast.  A  parliament  was  got  together  ;  not  with- 
out strong  suspicion  of  unfairness  ;  and  they  annulled  the  di- 
vorce, formerly  pronounced  by  Cranmer  between  the  queen's 
mother  and  King  Henry  the  Eighth,  and  unmade  all  the  laws 
on  the  subject  of  religion  that  had  been  made  in  the  last  King 
Edward's  reign.  They  began  their  proceedings,  in  violation  of 
the  law,  by  having  the' old  mass  said  before  them  in  Latin,  and 
by  turning  out  a  bishop  who  would  not  kneel  down.  They  also 
declared  guilty  of  treason  Lady  Jane  Grey,  for  aspiring  to  the 
crown ;  her  husband,  for  being  her  husband ;  and  Cranmer, 
for  not  believing  in  the  mass  aforesaid.  They  then  prayed  the 
queen  graciously  to  choose  a  husband  for  herself,  as  soon  as 
might  be. 

Now  the  question  who  should  be  the  queen's  husband  had 
given  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  discussion,  and  to  several  contend- 
ing parties.  Some  said  Cardinal  Pole  was  the  man  ;  but  the 
queen  was  of  opinion  that  he  was  not  the  man,  he  being 
too  old  and  too  much  of  a  student.  Others  said  that  the 
gallant  young  Courtenay,  whom  the  queen  had  made  Earl  of 
Devonshire,  was  the  man, — and  the  queen  thought  so  too 
for  a  while,  but  she  changed  her  mind.  At  last  it  appeared 
that  Philip,  Prince  of  Spain,  was  certainly  the  man, — though 
certainly  not  the  people's  man ;  for  they  detested  the  idea  of 
such  a  marriage  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  murmured 
that  the  Spaniard  would  establish  in  England,  by  the  aid  of 


248  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

foreign  soldiers,  the  worst  abuses  of  the  popish  religion,  and 
even  the  terrible  Inquisition  itself. 

These  discontents  gave  rise  to  a  conspiracy  for  marrying 
young  Courtenay  to  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  and  setting  them 
up  with  popular  tumults  all  over  the  kingdom,  against  the 
queen.  This  wab  discovered  in  time  by  Gardiner  ;  but  in  Kent, 
the  old  bold  county,  the  people  rose  in  their  old  bold  way.  Sir 
Thomas  Wyat,  a  man  of  great  daring,  was  their  leader.  He 
raised  his  standard  at  Maidstone,  marched  on  to  Rochester, 
established  himself  in  the  old  castle  there,  and  prepared  to 
hold  out  against  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who  came  against  him 
with  a  party  of  the  queen's  guards  and  a  body  of  five  hundred 
London  rr^n.  The  London  men,  however,  were  all  for  Eliza- 
beth, and  not  at  all  for  Mary.  They  declared,  under  the  castle 
walls,  for  Wyat ;  the  Duke  retreated  ;  and  Wyat  came  on  to 
Deptford,  at  the  head  of  fifteen  thousand  men. 

But  these,  in  their  turn,  fell  away.  When  he  came  to  South- 
wark,  there  were  only  two  thousand  left.  Not  dismayed  by 
finding  the  London  citizens  in  arms,  and  the  guns  at  the 
Tower  ready  to  oppose  his  crossing  the  river  there,  Wyat  led 
them  off  to  Kingston-upon-Thames,  intending  to  cross  the 
bridge  that  he  knew  to  be  in  that  place,  and  so  to  work  his  way 
round  to  Ludgate,  one  of  the  old  gates  of  the  city.  He  found 
the  bridge  broken  down,  but  mended  it,  came  across,  and  bravely 
fought  his  way,  up  Fleet  Street  to  Ludgate  Hill.  Finding  the 
gate  closed  against  him,  he  fought  his  way  back  again,  sword 
in  hand,  to  Temple  Bar.  Here  being  overpowered,  he  sur- 
rendered himself,  and  three  or  four  hundred  of  his  men  were 
taken,  besides  a  hundred  killed.  Wyat,  in  a  moment  of  weak- 
ness (and  perhaps  of  torture)  was  afterwards  made  to  accuse 
the  Princess  Elizabeth  as  his  accomplice  to  some  very  small 
extent.  But  his  manhood  soon  returned  to  him,  and  he  re- 
fused to  save  his  life  by  making  any  more  false  confessions. 
He  was  quartered  and  distributed  in  the  usual  brutal  way,  and 
from  fifty  to  a  hundred  of  his  followers  were  hanged.  The  rest 
were  led  out,  with  halters  round  their  necks,  to  be  pardoned, 
and  to  make  a  parade  of  crying  out,  "  God  save  Queen  Mary  !  " 

In  the  danger  of  this  rebellion,  the  queen  showed  herself 
to  be  a  woman  of  courage  and  spirit.  She  disdained  to  retreat 
to  any  place  of  safety,  and  went  down  to  the  Guildhall,  sceptre 
in  hand,  and  made  a  gallant  speech  to  the  Lord  Mayor  and 
citizens.  But  on  the  day  after  Wyat's  defeat  she  did  the  most 
cruel  act,  even  of  her  cruel  reign,  in  signing  the  death-warrant 
for  the  execution  of  Lady  Jane  Grey. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  MARY. 


249 


They  tried  to  persuade  Lady  Jane  to  accept  the  unreformed 
religion  ;  but  she  steadily  refused.  On  the  morning  when  she 
was  to  die,  she  saw  from  her  window  the  bleeding  and  headless 
body  of  her  husband  brought  back  in  a  cart  from  the  scaffold 
on  Tower  Hill,  where  he  had  laid  down  his  life.  But,  as  she 
had  declined  to  see  him  before  his  execution,  lest  she  should 
be  overpowered  and  not  make  a  good  end,  so  she  even  now 
showed  a  constancy  and  calmness  that  will  never  be  forgotten. 
She  came  up  to  the  scaffold  with  a  firm  step  and  a  quiet  face, 
and  addressed  the  bystanders  in  a  steady  voice.  They  were 
not  numerous  ;  for  she  was  too  young,  too  innocent  and  fair,  to 
be  murdered  before  the  people  on  Tower  Hill,  as  her  husband 
had  just  been  ;  so  the  place  of  her  execution  was  within  the 
Tower  itself.  She  said  that  she  had  done  an  unlawful  act  in 
taking  what  was  Queen  Mary's  right ;  but  that  she  had  done  so 
with  no  bad  intent,  and  that  she  died  a  humble  Christian.  She 
begged  the  executioner  to  despatch  her  quickly,  and  she  asked 
him,  "  Will  you  take  my  head  off  before  I  lay  me  down  ?  "  He 
answered,  "  No,  madam,"  and  then  she  was  very  quiet  while 
they  bandaged  her  eyes.  Being  blinded,  and  unable  to  see  the 
block  on  which  she  w^as  to  lay  her  young  head,  she  was  seen  to 
feel  about  for  it  with  her  hands,  and  was  heard  to  say,  confused 
"  O,  what  shall  I  do  t  Where  is  it  ?  "  Then  they  guided  her 
to  the  right  place,  and  the  executioner  struck  off  her  head. 
You  know  too  well,  now,  what  dreadful  deeds  the  executioner 
did  in  England,  through  many,  many  years,  and  how  his  axe 
descended  on  the  hateful  block  through  the  necks  of  some  of 
the  bravest,  wisest,  ai^  best  in  the  land.  But  it  never  struck 
so  cruel  and  so  vile  a  blow  as  this. 

The  father  of  Lady  Jane  soon  followed,  but  was  little  pitied. 
Queen  Mary's  next  object  was  to  lay  hold  of  Elizabeth,  and 
this  was  pursued  with  great  eagerness.  Five  hundred  men 
were  sent  to  her  retired  house  at  Ashrid2:e,  by  Berkhampstead, 
with  orders  to  bring  her  up,  alive  or  dead.  They  got  there  at 
ten  at  night,  when  she  was  sick  in  bed.  But  their  leaders 
followed  her  lady  into  her  bedchamber,  whence  she  was  brought 
out  betimes  next  mornning,  and  put  into  a  litter  to  be  conveyed 
to  London.  She  was  so  weak  and  ill  that  she  was  five  days  on 
the  road  ;  still  she  was  so  resolved  to  be  seen  by  the  people 
that  she  had  the  curtains  of  the  litter  opened  ;  and  so  very  pale 
and  sickly,  passed  through  the  streets.  She  wrote  to  her  sister, 
saying  she  was  innocent  of  any  crime,  and  asking  why  she  was 
made  a  prisoner ;  but  she  got  no  answer,  and  was  ordered  to 
the  Tower.     They  took  her  in  by  the  Traitor's  Gate,  to  which 


e50  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

ihe  objected,  but  in  vain.  One  of  the  lords  who  conveyed 
her  offered  to  cover  her  with  his  cloak,  as  it  was  raining;  but 
she  put  it  away  from  her  proudly  and  scornfully,  and  passed 
into  the  Tower,  and  sat  down  in  a  courtyard  on  a  stone.  They 
besought  her  to  come  in  out  of  the  wet;  but  she  answered 
that  it  was  better  sitting  there  than  in  a  worse  place.  At 
length  she  went  to  her  apartment,  where  she  was  kept  a 
prisoner,  though  not  so  close  a  prisoner  as  at  Woodstock, 
whither  she  was  afterward  removed,  and  where  she  is  said 
to  have  one  day  envied  a  milkmaid  whom  she  heard  singing 
in  the  sunshine  as  she  went  through  the  green  fields.  Gard- 
iner, than  whom  there  w^ere  not  many  worse  men  among  the 
fierce  and  sullen  priests,  cared  little  to  keep  secret  his  stern 
d'^sire  for  her  death;  being  used  to  say  that  it  was  of  little 
service  to  shake  off  the  leaves,  and  lop  the  branches  of  the 
tree  of  heresy,  if  its  root,  the  hope  of  heretics,  were  left.  He 
failed  however,  in  his  benevolent  design.  Elizabeth  was  at 
length  released;  and  Hatfield  House  was  assigned  to  her  as 
a  residence,  under  the  care  of  one  Sir  Thomas  Pope. 

It  would  seem  that  Philip,  the  Prince  of  Spain,  was  a  main 
cause  of  tk's  change  in  EHzabeth's  fortunes.  He  was  not  an 
amiable  man  being,  on  the  contrary,  proud,  overbearing,  and 
gloomy  ;  but  he  and  the  Spanish  lords  who  came  over  with 
him  assuredly  did  discountenance  the  idea  of  doing  any  violence 
to  the  princess.  P  may  have  been  mere  prudence,  but  we  will 
hope  it  was  manhood  and  honor.  The  queen  had  been  ex- 
pecting her  husband  vith  great  impatience ;  and  at  length  he 
came,  to  her  great  joy,  *"hough  he  never  cared  much  for  her. 
They  were  married  by  Ga.^diner,  at  Winchester,  and  there  was 
more  holiday-making  among  "^he  peo.ple,  but  they  had  their  old 
distrust  of  the  Spanish  marriage,  m  which  even  the  Parliament 
shared.  Though  the  members  o^  that  parliament  were  far  from 
honest,  and  w^ere  strongly  suspected  to  have  been  brought  with 
Spanish  money,  they  would  pass  no  bill  to  enable  the  queen  to 
set  aside  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  and  appoint  her  own  suc- 
cessor. 

Although  Gardiner  failed  in  this  object  as  well  as  in  the 
darker  one  of  bringing  the  princess  to  the  scaffold,  he  w^ent 
on  at  a  great  pace  in  the  revival  of  the  unreto''med  religion. 
A  new  parliament  was  packed,  in  which  there  we^^e  no  Prot- 
estants. Preparations  were  made  to  receive  Cardinal  Pole  in 
England  as  the  pope's  messenger,  bringing  his  holy  declaration 
that  all  the  nobility  who  had  acquired  Church  property  should 
keep  it ;  which  was  done  to  enlist  their  selfish  interest  on  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  MARY. 


251 


pope's  side.  Then  a  great  scene  was  enacted,  which  was  the 
triumph  of  the  queen's  plans.  Cardinal  Pole  arrived  in  great 
splendor  and  dignity,  and  was  received  with  great  pomp.  The 
Parliament  jomed  in  a  petition  expressive  of  their  sorrow  at 
the  change  in  the  national  religion,  and  praying  him  to  receive 
the  country  again  into  the  Popish  Church.  With  the  queer 
sitting  on  her  throne,  and  the  king  on  one  side  of  her,  and  the 
cardinal  on  the  other,  and  the  parliament  present,  Gardiner 
read  the  petition  aloud.  The  cardinal  then  made  a  great 
speech,  and  was  so  obliging  as  to  say  that  all  was  forgotten  and 
forgiven,  and  that  the  kingdom  was  solemnly  made  Roman 
Catholic  again. 

Everything  was  now  ready  for  the  lighting  of  the  terrible  bon- 
fires. The  queen  having  declared  to  the  council,  in  writing,  that 
she  would  wish  none  of  her  subjects  to  be  burnt  without  some 
of  the  council  being  present,  and  that  she  would  particularly 
wish  there  to  be  good  sermons  at  all  burnings,  the  council  knew 
pretty  well  what  was  to  be  done  next.  So  after  the  cardinal 
had  blessed  all  the  bishops  as  a  preface  to  the  burnings,  the 
Chancellor  Gardiner  opened  a  high  court  at  St.  Mary  Overy, 
on  the  Southwark  side  of  London  Bridge,  for  the  trial  of 
heretics.  Here  two  of  the  late  Protestant  clergymen.  Hooper, 
Bishop  of  Gloucester,  and  Rogers,  a  prebendary  of  St.  Paul's 
were  brought  to  be  tried.  Hooper  was  tried  first  for  being 
married,  though  a  priest,  and  for  not  believing  in  the  mass. 
He  admitted  both  of  these  accusations,  and  said  that  the  mass 
was  a  wicked  imposition.  Then  they  tried  Rogers,  who  said 
the  same.  Next  morning  the  two  were  brought  up  to  be  sen- 
tenced ;  and  then  Rogers  said  that  his  poor  wife,  being  a 
German  woman  and  a  stranger  in  the  land,  he  hoped  might  be 
allowed  to  come  to  speak  to  him  before  he  died.  To  this  the 
inhuman  Gardiner  replied,  that  she  was  not  his  wife.  "Yea, 
but  she  is,  my  lord,"  said  Rogers  ;  "she  hath  been  my  wife 
these  eighteen  years."  His  request  was  still  refused,  and  they 
were  both  sent  to  Newgate  ;  all  those  who  stood  in  the  streets 
to  sell  things  being  ordered  to  put  out  their  lights  that  the 
people  might  not  see  them.  But  the  people  stood  at  their  doors 
with  candles  in  their  hands,  and  prayed  for  them  as  they  went 
by.  Soon  afterwards  Rogers  was  taken  out  of  jail  to  be  burnt 
in  Smithfield  ;  and,  in  the  crowd  as  he  went  along,  he  saw  his 
poor  wife  and  his  ten  children,  of  whom  the  youngest  was  a 
little  baby.     And  so  he  was  burnt  to  death. 

The  next  day  Hooper,  who  was  to  be  burnt  at  Gloucester, 
was  brought  out  to  taka  his  last  journey,  and  was  made  to  wear 


•52 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


a  hood  over  his  face  that  he  might  not  be  known  by  the  people. 
But  they  did  know  him  for  all  that,  down  in  his  own  part  of  the 
country  ;  and  when  he  came  near  Gloucester,  they  lined  the 
road,  making  prayers  and  lamentations.  His  guards  took  him 
to  a  lodging,  where  he  slept  soundly  all  night.  At  nine  o'clock 
next  morning,  he  was  brought  forth  leaning  on  a  staff  :  for  he 
had  taken  cold  in  prison,  and  was  infirm.  The  iron  stake,  and 
the  iron  chain  which  was  to  bind  him  to  it,  were  fixed  up  near 
a  great  elm-tree,  in  a  pleasant  open  place  before  the  cathedral, 
where,  on  peaceful  Sundays,  he  had  been  accustomed  to  preach 
and  to  pray  when  he  was  Bishop  of  Gloucester.  This  tree, 
which  had  no  leaves  then,  it  being  February,  was  filled  with 
people;  and  the  priests  of  Gloucester  College  were  looking 
complacently  on  from  a  window ;  and  there  was  a  great  con- 
course of  spectators  in  every  spot  from  which  a  glimpse  of  the 
dreadful  sight  could  be  beheld.  When  the  old  man  kneeled 
down  on  the  small  platform  at  the  foot  of  the  stake,  and  prayed 
aloud,  the  nearest  people  M^ere  observed  to  be  so  attentive  to 
his  prayers  that  they  were  ordered  to  stand  farther  back  ;  for  it 
did  not  suit  the  Romish  Church  to  have  those  Protestant  words 
heard.  His  prayers  concluded,  he  went  up  to  the  stake,  and 
was  stripped  to  his  shirt,  and  chained  ready  for  the  fire.  One 
of  his  guards  had  such  compassion  on  him,  that  to  shorten  his 
agonies,  he  tied  some  packets  of  gunpowder  about  him.  Then 
they  heaped  up  wood  and  straw  and  reeds,  and  set  them  all 
alight.  But  unhappily  the  wood  was  green  and  damp,  and 
there  was  a  wind  blowing  that  blew  what  flame  there  was  away. 
Thus,  through  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  the  good  old  man  was 
scorched  and  roasted  and  smoked,  as  the  fire  rose  and  sank  ; 
and  all  that  time  they  saw  him,  as  he  burned,  moving  his  lips 
in  prayer,  and  beating  his  breast  with  one  hand,  even  after  the 
other  was  burnt  away  and  had  fallen  off. 

Cranmer,  Ridley,  and  Latimer  were  taken  to  Oxford  to  dis- 
pute with  a  commission  of  priests  and  doctors  about  the  mass. 
They  were  shamefully  treated  ;  and  it  is  recorded  that  the  Ox- 
ford scholars  hissed  and  howled  and  groaned,  and  misconducted 
themselves  in  anything  but  a  scholarly  way.  The  prisoners 
were  taken  back  to  jail,  and  afterwards  tried  in  St.  Mr.ry's 
Church.  They  were  all  found  guilt3\  On  the  sixteenth  of  the 
month  of  October,  Ridley  and  Latimer  were  brought  out  to 
make  another  of  the  dreadful  bonfires. 

The  scene  of  the  suffering  of  these  two  good  Protestant 
men  was  in  the  city  ditch,  near  Baliol  College.  On  coming  to 
the  dreadful  spot,  they  kissed  the  stake,  and   then   embraced 


ENGLAND  UNDER  MARY, 


253 


each  other.  And  then  a  learned  doctor  got  up  into  a  pulpit 
which  was  placed  there,  and  preached  a  sermon  from  the  text, 
"  Though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it 
profiteth  me  nothing."  When  you  think  of  the  charity  of  burn- 
ing men  alive,  you  may  imagine  that  this  learned  doctor  had 
a  rather  brazen  face.  Ridley  would  have  answered  his  sermon 
when  it  came  to  an  end,  but  was  not  allowed.  When  Latimer 
was  stripped,  it  appeared  that  he  had  dressed  himself,  under 
his  other  clothes,  in  a  new  shroud  ;  and,  as  he  stood  in  it  before 
all  the  people,  it  was  noted  of  him,  and  long  remembered,  that 
whereas  he  had  been  stooping  and  feeble  but  a  few  minutes 
before,  he  now  stood  upright  and  handsome,  in  the  knowledge 
that  he  was  dyin ;  for  a  just  and  a  great  cause.  Ridley's 
brother-in-law  was  there  with  bags  of  gunpowder  ;  and  when 
they  were  both  chained  up,  he  tied  them  round  their  bodies. 
Then  a  light  was  thrown  upon  the  pile  to  fire  it.  "  Be  of  good 
comfort,  Master  Ridley,"  said  Latimer  in  that  awful  moment, 
"  and  play  the  man  !  We  shall  this  day  light  such  a  candle,  by 
God's  grace,  in  England,  as  I  trust  shall  never  be  put  out." 
And  then  he  was  seen  to  make  motions  with  his  hands  as  if  he 
were  washing  them  in  the  flames,  and  to  stroke  his  aged  face 
with  them,  and  was  heard  to  cry,  "  Father  of  Heaven  !  receive 
my  soul."  He  died  quickly ;  but  the  fire,  after  having  burned 
the  legs  of  Ridley,  sunk.  There  he  lingered,  chained  to  the 
iron  post,  and  crying,  "  O,  I  cannot  burn  !  O,  for  Christ's 
sake,  let  the  fire  come  unto  me  !  "  And  still,  when  his  brother- 
in-law  had  heaped  on  more  wood,  he  was  heard  through  the 
blinding  smoke  still  dismally  crying,  "  O,  I  cannot  burn,  I  can- 
not burn  !  "  At  last  the  gunpowder  caught  fire,  and  ended  his 
miseries. 

Five  days  after  this  fearful  scene,  Gardiner  went  to  his  tre- 
mendous account  before  God,  for  the  cruelties  he  had  so  much 
assisted  in  committing. 

Cranmer  remained  still  alive  and  in  prison.  He  was  brought 
out  again  in  February,  for  more  examining  and  trying,  by  Bon- 
ner, Bishop  of  London, — another  man  of  blood,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded to  Gardiner's  work,  even  in  his  lifetime,  when  Gardiner 
was  tired  of  it.  Cranmer  was  now  degraded  as  a  priest,  and 
left  for  death  ;  but,  if  the  queen  hated  any  one  on  earth,  she 
hated  him  ,  and  it  was  resolved  that  he  should  be  ruined  and 
disgraced  to  the  utmost.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  queen 
and  her  h|Lisband  personally  urged  on  these  deeds,  because  they 
wrote  to  the  council,  urging  them  to  be  active  in  the  kindling  of 
the  fearful  fires.     As  Cranmer  was  known  not  to  be  a  firm  man, 


254 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


a  plan  was  laid  for  surrounding  him  with  artful  people,  and  in- 
ducing him  to  recant  to  the  unreformed  religion.  Deans  and 
friars  visited  him,  played  at  bowls  with  him,  showed  him  various 
attentions,  talked  persuasively  with  him,  gave  him  money  for 
his  prison  comforts,  and  induced  him  to  sign,  I  fear,  as  many 
as  six  recantations.  But  when,  after  all,  he  was  taken  out  to  be 
burnt,  he  was  nobly  true  to  his  better  self,  and  made  a  glori- 
ous end. 

After  prayers  and  a  sermon.  Dr.  Cole,  the  preacher  of  the 
day  (who  had  been  one  of  the  artful  priests  about  Cranmer  in 
prison),  required  him  to  make  a  public  confession  of  his  faith 
before  the  people.  This  Cole  did,  expecting  that  he  would  de- 
clare himself  a  Roman  Catholic.  "  I  z£^///make  a  profession  of 
my  faith,"  said  Cranmer,  "  and  with  a  good  will  too." 

Then  he  arose  before  them  all,  and  took  from  the  sleeve  of 
his  robe  a  written  prayer,  and  read  it  aloud.  That  done,  he 
knelt  and  said  the  Lord's  Prayer,  all  the  people  joining ;  and 
then  he  arose  again,  and  told  them  that  he  believed  in  the 
Bible  ;  and  that  in  what  he  had  lately  written,  he  had  written 
what  was  not  the  truth ;  and  that,  because  his  right  hand  had 
signed  those  papers,  he  would  burn  his  right  hand  first  when  he 
came  to  the  fire.  As  for  the  pope,  he  did  refuse  him  and  de- 
nounce him,  as  the  enemy  of  Heaven.  Hereupon  the  pious 
Dr.  Cole  cried  out  to  the  guards  to  stop  that  heretic's  mouth, 
and  take  him  away. 

So  they  took  him  away,  and  chained  him  to  the  stake, 
where  he  hastily  took  off  his  own  clothes  to  make  ready  for  the 
flames.  And  he  stood  before  the  people  with  a  bald  head  and 
a  white  and  flowing  beard.  He  was  so  firm  now  when  the 
worst  was  come,  that  he  again  declared  against  his  recantation 
and  was  so  impressive  and  so  undismayed,  that  a  certain  lord,who 
was  one  of  the  directors  of  the  execution,  called  out  to  his  men 
to  make  haste.  When  the  fire  was  lighted,  Cranmer,  true  to 
his  latest  word,  stretched  out  his  right  hand,  and  crying  out, 
"  This  hand  hath  offended  !  "  held  it  among  the  flames  until  it 
blazed  and  burned  away.  His  heart  was  found  entire  among  his 
ashes,  and  he  left  at  last  a  memorable  name  in  English  history. 
Cardinal  Pole  celebrated  the  day  by  saying  his  first  mass  ;  and 
next  day  he  was  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  Cranmer's 
place. 

The  queen's  husband,  who  was  now  mostly  abroad  in  his 
own  dominions,  and  generally  made  a  coarse  jest  of  her  to  his 
more  familiar  courtiers,  was  at  war  with  France,  and  came  o\ei- 
to  seek  the  assistance  of  England.     England  was  very  unwUliii^ 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETh.  255 

to  engage  in  a  French  war  for  his  sake  ;  but  it  happened  that 
the  King  of  France,  at  this  very  time,  aided  a  descent  upon  the 
English  coast.  Hence  war  was  declared,  greatly  to  Philip's 
satisfaction  ;  and  the  queen  raised  a  sum  of  money  with  which 
to  carry  it  on,  by  every  unjustifiable  means  in  her  power.  It 
met  with  no  profitable  return ;  for  the  French  Duke  of  Guise 
surprised  Calais,  and  the  English  sustained  a  complete  defeat. 
The  losses  they  met  with  in  France  greatly  mortified  the  na- 
tional pride,  and  the  queen  never  recovered  the  blow. 

There  v/as  a  bad  fever  raging  in  England  at  this  time ;  and 
I  am  glad  to  write  that  the  queen  took  it,  and  the  hour  of  her 
death  came.  *'  When  I  am  dead,  and  my  body  is  opened," 
she  said  to  those  around  her,  "ye  shall  find  Calais  written  on 
my  heart."  I  should  have  thought,  if  anything  were  written  on 
it,  they  would  have  found  the  words  "Jane  Grey,  Hooper, 
Rogers,  Ridley,  Latimer,  Cranmer,  and  three  hundred  people 
burnt  alive  within  four  years  of  my  wicked  reign,  including 
sixty  women  and  forty  little  children."  But  it  is  enough  that 
their  deaths  were  written  in  heaven. 

The  queen  died  on  the  17th  of  November,  1558,  after  reign- 
ing not  quite  five  years  and  a  half,  and  in  the  forty-fourth  year 
of  her  age.     Cardinal  Pole  died  of  the  same  fever  next  day. 

As  Bloody  Queen  Mary,  this  woman  has  become  famous  : 
and  as  Bloody  Queen  Mary  she  will  ever  be  justly  remembered 
with  horror  and  detestation  in  Great  Britain.  Her  memory 
has  been  held  in  such  abhorrence,  that  some  writers  have  arisen 
in  later  years  to  take  her  part,  and  to  show  that  she  was,  upon 
the  whole  quite  an  amiable  and  cheerful  sovereign  !  "  By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them,"  said  our  Saviour.  The  stake  and 
the  fire  were  the  fruits  of  this  reign,  and  you  will  judge  this 
queen  by  nothing  else. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

I'NGLAND    UNDER    ELIZABETH. 


There  was  great  rejoicing  all  over  the  land  when  the  lords 
of  the  council  went  down  to  Hatfield  to  hail  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth as  the  new  queen  of  England.  Weary  of  the  barbarities 
of  Mary's  reign,  the  people  looked  with  hope  ai.\d  gladness  to 
the  new  sovereign.     The  nation  seemed  to  wake  from  a  horri 


■56 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


ble  dreanr ;  and  heaven,  so  long  hidden  by  the  smoke  of  the 
fires  that  roasted  men  and  women  to  death,  appeared  to  brighten 
once  more. 

Queen  Elizabeth  was  five-and-twenty  years  of  age  when 
she  rode  through  the  streets  of  London,  from  the  Tower  to 
Westminster  Abbey,  to  be  crowned.  Her  countenance  was 
strongly  marked,  but,  on  the  whole,  commanding  and  dignified  ; 
her  hair  was  red,  and  her  nose  something  too  long  and  sharp 
for  a  woman's.  She  was  not  the  beautiful  creature  her  court- 
iers made  out ;  but  she  was  well  enough,  and  no  doubt  looked 
all  the  better  for  coming  after  the  dark  and  gloomy  Mary.  She 
was  well  educated,  but  a  roundabout  writer,  and  rather  a  hard 
swearer  and  coarse  talker.  She  was  clever,  but  cunning  and 
deceitful,  and  inherited  much  of  her  father's  violent  temper. 
I  mention  this  now,  because  she  has  been  so  over  praised  by 
one  party,  and  so  over-abused  by  another,  that  it  is  hardly  possi- 
ble to  understand  the  greater  part  of  her  reign  without  first 
understanding  what  kind  of  a  woman  she  really  was. 

She  began  her  reign  with  the  great  advantage  of  having  a 
very  wise  and  careful  minister,  Sir  William  Cecil,  whom  she 
afterwards  made  Lord  Burleigh.  Altogether,  the  people  had 
greater  reason  for  rejoicing  than  they  usually  had  when  there 
were  processions  in  the  streets ;  and  they  were  happy  with 
some  reason.  All  kinds  of  shows  and  images  were  set  up  ; 
Gog  and  Magog  were  hoisted  to  the  top  of  Temple  Bar  ;  and 
(which  was  more  to  the  purpose)  the  corporation  dutifully  pre- 
sented the  young  queen  with  the  sum  of  a  thousand  marks  in 
gold, — so  heavy  a  present,  that  she  was  obliged  to  take  it  into 
her  carriage  with  both  hands.  The  coronation  was  a  great 
success ;  and  on  the  next  day  one  of  the  courtiers  presented  a 
petition  to  the  new  queen,  praying  that,  as  it  was  the  custom  to 
release  some  prisoner  on  such  occasions,  she  would  have  the 
goodness  to  release  the  four  Evangelists,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
and  John,  and  also  the  Apostle  St.  Paul,  who  had  been  for  some 
time  shut  up  in  a  strange  language,  so  that  the  people  could 
not  get  at  them. 

To  this  the  queen  replied  that  it  would  be  better  first  to 
inquiry  of  themselves  whether  they  desired  to  be  released  or 
not  :  and,  as  a  means  of  finding  out,  a  great  public  discussion 
— a  sort  of  religious  tournament — was  appointed  to  take  place 
between  certain  champions  of  the  two  religions,  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  You  may  suppose  that  it  was  soon  made  pretty  clear 
♦p-  common  sense,  that  for  people-  to  benefit  by  what  they  repeat 

read,  it  is  rather  necessary  they  should  understand  some- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  j^y^ 

thing  about  it.  Accordingly  a  church  service  in  plain  English 
was  settled,  and  other  laws  and  regulations  were  made,  com- 
pletely establishing  the  great  work  of  the  Reformation.  The 
Romish  bishops  and  champions  were  not  harshly  dealt  with,  all 
things  considered  ;  and  the  queen's  ministers  were  both  prudent 
and  merciful. 

The  one  great  trouble  of  this  reign,  and  the  unfortunate 
cause  of  the  greater  part  of  such  turmoil  and  bloodshed  as  oc- 
curred in  it,  was  Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots.  We  will  try  to 
understand,  in  as  few  words  as  possible,  who  Mary  was,  what 
Bhe  was,  and  how  she  came  to  be  a  thorn  in  the  royal  pillow  of 
Ehzabeth. 

She  was  the  daughter  of  the  Queen  Regent  of  Scotland, 
Mary  of  Guise.  She  had  been  married  when  a  mere  child,  to 
the  dauphin,  the  son  and  heir  to  the  King  of  France.  The 
pope,  who  pretended  that  no  one  could  rightfully  wear  the 
crown  of  England  without  his  gracious  permission,  was  strongly 
opposed  to  Elizabeth,  who  had  not  asked  for  the  said  gracious 
permission.  And  as  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  would  have  in- 
herited the  English  crown  in  right  of  her  birth,  supposing  the 
English  parliament  not  to  have  altered  the  succession,  the  pope 
himself,  and  most  of  the  discontented  who  were  followers  of 
his,  maintained  that  Mary  was  the  rightful  queen  of  England, 
and  Elizabeth  the  wrongful  queen.  Mary  being  so  closely  con- 
nected with  France,  and  France  being  jealous  of  England, 
there  was  far  greater  danger  in  this  than  there  would  have  been 
if  she  had  had  no  alliance  with  that  great  power.  And  when 
her  young  husband,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  became  Francis 
the  Second,  King  of  France,  the  matter  grew  very  serious.  For 
the  young  couple  styled  themselves  King  and  Queen  of  Eng- 
land and  the  pope  was  disposed  to  help  them  by  doing  all  the 
mischief  he  could. 

Now  the  reformed  religion,  under  the  guidance  of  a  stern 
and  powerful  preacher  named  John  Knox,  and  other  such  men, 
had  been  making  fierce  progress  in  Scotland.  It  was  still  a 
half-savage  country,  where  there  was  a  great  deal  of  murdering 
and  rioting  continually  going  on  ;  and  the  reformers,  instead  of 
reforming  those  evils  as  they  should  have  done,  went  to  work 
in  the  ferocious  old  Scottish  spirit,  laying  churches  and  chapels 
waste,  pulling  down  pictures  and  altars,  and  knocking  about 
the  Grey  Friars,  and  the  Black  Friars,  and  the  White  Friars, 
and  the  friars  of  all  sorts  of  colors,  in  all  directions.  This  ob- 
durate and  harsh  spirit  of  the  Scottish  reformers  (the  Scotch 
have  always  been  rather  a  sullen   and  drowning  people  in  relig- 


258  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

ious  matters)  put  up  the  blood  of  the  Romish  French  court, 
and  caused  France  to  send  troops  over  to  Scotland,  with  the 
hope  of  setting  the  friars  of  all  sorts  of  colors  on  their  legs 
again  ;  of  conquering  that  country  first,  and  England  after- 
wards, and  so  crushing  the  Reformation  all  to  pieces.  The 
Scottish  reformers,  who  had  formed  a  great  league  which  they 
called  The  Congregation  of  the  Lord,  secretly  represented  to 
Elizabeth  that  if  the  reformed  religion  got  the  worst  of  it  with 
them,  it  would  be  likely  to  get  the  worst  of  it  in  England  too  ; 
and  thus  Elizabeth,  though  she  had  a  high  notion  of  the  rights 
of  kings  and  queens  to  do  anything  they  liked,  sent  an  army  to 
Scotland  to  support  the  reformers  who  were  in  arms  against 
their  sovereign.  All  these  proceedings  led  to  a  treaty  of  peace 
at  Edinburgh,  under  which  the  French  consented  to  depart 
from  the  kingdom.  By  a  separate  treaty,  Mary  and  her  young 
husband  engaged  to  renounce  their  assumed  title  of  King  and 
Queen  of  England.     But  this  treaty  they  never  fulfilled. 

It  happened  soon  after  matters  had  got  to  this  state  that 
the  young  French  king  died,  leaving  Mary  a  young  widow.  She 
was  then  invited  by  her  Scottish  subjects  to  return  home  and 
reign  over  them  ;  and,  as  she  was  not  now  happy  where  she 
was,  she  after  a  little  time  complied. 

Elizabeth  had  been  queen  three  years  when  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots,  embarked  at  Calais  for  her  own  rough,  quarrelling: 
country.  As  she  came  out  of  the  harbor,  a  vessel  was  lost  be- 
fore her  eyes  ;  and  she  said,  "  O  good  God  !  what  an  omen  this 
is  for  such  a  voyage  !  "  She  v/as  very  fond  of  France,  and  sat 
on  the  deck,  looking  back  at  it  and  weeping,  until  it  was  quite 
dark.  When  she  went  to  bed,  she  directed  to  be  called  at  day- 
break, if  the  French  coast  was  still  visible,  that  she  might  be- 
hold it  for  the  last  time.  As  it  proved  to  be  a  clear  morning, 
this  was  done ;  and  she  again  wept  for  the  country  she  was 
leaving,  and  said  many  times,  *'  Farewell,  France  !  Farewell, 
France !  I  shall  never  see  thee  again  ! "  All  this  was  long 
remembered  afterwards,  as  sorrowful  and  interesting  in  a  fair 
young  princess  of  nineteen.  Indeed,  I  am  afraid  it  gradually 
came  together  with  her  distresses,  to  surround  her  with  greater 
sympathy  than  she  deserved. 

When  she  came  to  Scotland,  and  took  up  her  abode  at  the 
palace  of  Holyrood  in  Edinburgh,  she  found  herself  among  un- 
couth strangers,  and  wild,  uncomfortable  customs,  very  different 
from  her  experience  in  the  court  of  France.  The  very  people 
who  were  disposed  to  love  her  made  her  head  ache,  when  she 
was  tired  out  by  her  voyage,  with  a  serenade  of  discorda.'jt 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  259 

music, — a  fearful  concert  of  bagpipes,  I  suppose, — and  brought 
her  and  her  train  home  to  her  palace  on  miserable  little  Scotch 
horses  that  appeared  to  be  half  starved.  Among  the  people 
who  were  not  disposed  to  love  her,  she  found  the  powerful 
leaders  of  the  Relormed  Church,  who  were  bitter  upon  her 
amusements,  however  innocent,  and  denounced  music  and 
dancing  as  works  of  the  Devil.  John  Knox  himself  often 
lectured  her  violently  and  angrily,  and  did  much  to  make  her 
life  unhappy.  All  these  reasons  confirmed  her  old  attachment 
to  the  Romish  religion,  and  caused  her,  there  is  no  doubt,  most 
imprudently  and  dangerously,  both  for  herself  and  for  England 
too,  to  give  a  solemn  pledge  to  the  heads  of  the  Romish 
Church,  that,  if  she  ever  succeeded  to  the  English  crown,  she 
would  set  up  that  religion  again.  In  reading  her  unhappy  his- 
tory, you  must  always  remember  this  ;  and  also  that  during 
her  whole  life  she  was  constantly  put  forward  against  the  queen, 
in  some  form  or  other,  by  the  Romish  party. 

That  Elizabeth,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  inclined  to  like 
her,  is  pretty  certain.  Elizabeth  was  very  vain  and  jealous, 
and  had  an  extraordinary  dislike  to  people  being  married. 
She  treated  Lady  Catherine  Grey,  sister  of  the  beheaded  Lady 
Jane,  with  such  shameful  severity,  for  no  other  reason  than  her 
being  secretly  married,  that  she  died,  and  her  husband  was 
ruined ;  so,  when  a  second  marriage  for  Mary  began  to  be 
talked  about,  probably  Elizabeth  disliked  her  more.  Not  that 
Elizabeth  wanted  suitors  of  her  own  ;  for  they  started  up  from 
Spain,  Austria,  Sweden,  and  England.  Her  English  lover  at 
this  time,  and  one  whom  she  much  favored  too,  was  Lord  Robert 
Dudley.  Earl  of  Leicester — himself  secretly  married  to  Amy 
Robsart,  the  daughter  of  an  English  gentleman  whom  he  was 
strongly  suspected  of  causing  to  be  murdered,  down  at  his 
country-seat,  Cumnor  Hall,  in  Berkshire,  that  he  might  be  free 
to  marry  the  queen.  Upon  this  story,  the  great  writer.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  has  founded  one  of  his  best  romances.  But  if 
Elizabeth  knew  how  to  lead  her  handsome  favorite  on,  for  her 
own  vanity  and  pleasure,  she  knew  how  to  stop  him  for  her 
own  pride  ;  and  his  love,  and  all  the  other  proposals,  came  to 
nothing.  The  queen  always  declared  in  good  set  speeches  that 
she  would  never  be  married  at  all,  but  would  live  and  die  a 
maiden  queen.  It  was  a  very  pleasant  and  meritorious  declara- 
t'on,  I  suppose  ;  but  it  has  been  puffed  and  trumpeted  so  much, 
that  I  am  rather  tired  ot  it  myself. 

Divers  princes  proposed  to  marry  Mary ;  but  the  English 
court  had  reasons  for  being  jealous  of  them  all,  and  even  pro- 


26o  CHILD'S  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  ENGLAND, 

posed,  as  a  matter  of  policy,  that  she  should  marry  that  very 
Earl  of  Leicester  who  had  aspired  to  be  the  husband  of  Eliz- 
abeth. At  last,  Lord  Darnley,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Lennox,  and 
himself  descended  from  the  Royal  Family  of  Scotland,  went 
over,  with  Elizabeth's  consent,  to  try  his  fortune  at  Holyrood. 
He  was  a  tall  snnpleton,  and  could  dance  and  play  the  guitar, 
but  1  know  of  nothmg  else  he  could  do,  unless  it  were  to  get 
\ery  drunk,  and  eat  gluttonously,  and  make  a  contemptible 
?,pectacle  ot  himself  in  many  mean  and  vain  ways.  However^ 
lie  gained  Mary's  heart,  not  disdaining  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
object  to  ally  himself  with  one  ot  her  secretaries,  David  Rizzio, 
wlio  had  great  influence  with  her.  He  soon  married  the  queen. 
This  marriage  does  not  say  much  for  her ;  but  what  followed 
will  presently  say  less. 

Mary's  brother,  the  Earl  of  Murray,  and  head  of  the  Prot- 
estant party  in  Scotland,  had  opposed  this  marriage,  partly, 
on  religious  grounds,  and  partly,  perhaps,  from  personal  dislike 
of  the  very  contemptible  bridegroom.  When  it  had  taken 
place,  through  Mary's  gaining  over  to  it  the  more  powerful  of 
the  lords  about  her,  she  banished  Murray  for  his  pains  ;  and 
when  he  and  some  other  nobles  rose  in  arms  to  support  the 
reformed  religion,  she  herself,  within  a  month  of  her  wedding- 
day,  rode  against  them  in  armor  with  loaded  pistols  in  her 
saddle.  Driven  out  of  Scotland,  they  presented  themselves 
before  Elizabeth,  who  called  them  traitors  in  public,  and  as- 
sisted them  in  private,  according  to  her  crafty  nature. 

Mary  had  been  married  but  a  little  while,  when  she  began 
to  hate  her  husband,  who,  in  his  turn,  began  to  hate  that  David 
Rizzio,  with  whom  he  had  leagued  to  gain  her  favor,  and  whom 
he  now  believed  to  be  her  lover.  He  hated  Rizzio  to  that  ex- 
tent that  he  made  a  compact  with  Lord  Ruthven  and  three  other 
lords  to  get  rid  of  him  by  murder.  The  wicked  agreement  they 
made  in  solemn  secrecy  upon  the  ist  of  March,  1556,  and,  on  the 
night  of  Saturday,  the  9th,  the  conspirators  v/ere  brought  by 
J^arnley  up  a  private  staircase,  dark  and  steep,  into  a  range  of 
rooms  where  they  knew  that  Mary  was  sitting  at  supper  with  her 
MsLer,  Lady  Argyle,  and  this  doomed  man.  When  they  went 
into  the  room,  Darnley  took  the  queen  round  the  waist,  and 
Lord  Ruthven,  who  had  risen  from  a  bed  of  sickness  to  do  this 
murder,  came  in,  gaunt  and  ghastly,  leaning  on  two  men. 
Rizzio  ran  behind  the  queen  for  shelter  and  protection.  "  Let 
him  come  out  of  the  room,"  said  Ruthven.  "  He  shall  not 
leave  the  room,"  replied  the  queen  ;  "  I  read  his  danger  in  your 
face,  and  it  is  my  will  that  he  remain  here."    They  then  set 


BNCLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  261 

upon  him,  struggled  with  him,  overturned  the  table,  dragged 
him  out,  and  killed  him  with  fifty-six  stabs.  When  the  queen 
heard  that  he  was  dead,  she  said,  "  No  more  tears.  I  will  think 
now  of  revenge  !  " 

Within  a  day  or  two,  she  gained  her  husband  over,  and  pre- 
vailed on  the  tall  idiot  to  abandon  the  conspirators,  and  tiy 
with  her  to  Dunbar.  There  he  issued  a  proclamation,  auda- 
ciously and  falsely  denying  that  he  had  any  knowledge  of  the 
late  bloody  business  ;  and  there  they  were  joined  by  the  Earl 
Bothwell  and  some  other  nobles.  With  their  help,  they  raised 
eight  thousand  men,  returned  to  Edinburgh,  and  drove  the 
assassins  into  England.  Mary  soon  afterwards  gave  birth  to  a 
son, — still  thinking  of  revenge. 

That  she  should  have  had  a  greater  scorn  for  her  husband 
after  his  late  cowardice  and  treachery  than  she  had  had  before 
was  natural  enough.  ,  There  is  little  doubt  that  she  now  began 
to  love  Bothwell  instead,  and  to  plan  with  him  means  of  get- 
ting rid  of  Darnley.  Bothwell  had  such  power  over  her,  that 
he  induced  her  even  to  pardon  the  assassins  of  Rizzio.  The 
arrangements  for  the  christening  of  the  young  prince  were  in- 
trusted to  him,  and  he  was  one  of  the  most  important  people 
at  the  ceremony,  where  the  child  was  named  James  ;  Elizabeth 
being  his  godmother,  though  not  present  at  the  occasion.  A 
week  aftervvards,  Darnley,  who  had  left  Mary  and  gone  to  his 
father's  house  at  Glasgow,  being  taken  ill  with  the  small-pox, 
she  sent  her  own  physician  to  attend  him.  But  there  is  reason 
to  apprehend  that  this  was  merely  a  show  and  a  pretence,  and 
that  she  knew  what  was  doing,  when  Bothwell  within  another 
month  proposed  to  one  of  the  late  conspirators  against  Rizzio, 
to  murder  Darnley,  "  for  that  it  was  the  queen's  mind  that 
he  should  be  taken  away."  It  is  certain  that  on  that  very 
day  she  wrote  to  her  ambassador  in  France,  complaining 
of  him,  and  yet  went  immediately  to  Glasgow,  feigning  to  be 
very  anxious  about  him,  and  to  love  him  very  much.  If  she 
wanted  to  get  him  in  her  power,  she  succeeded  to  her  heart's 
content ;  for  she  induced  him  to  go  back  with  her  to  Edin^ 
burgh,  and  to  occupy,  instead  of  the  palace,  a  lone  house  cut- 
side  the  city  called  the  Kirk  of  Field.  Here  he  lived  for  about 
a  week.  One  Sunday  night,  she  remained  with  him  until  ten 
o'clock,  and  then  left  him  go  to  Holyrood  to  be  present  at 
an  entertainment  given  in  celebration  of  the  marriage  of  one  ot 
her  favorite  servants.  At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  city 
was  shaken  by  a  great  explosion,  and  the  Kirk  of  Field  was 
blown  to  atoms. 


262  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

Darnley's  body  was  found  next  day  lying  under  a  tree  at 
some  distance.  How  it  came  there,  undisfigured  and  un- 
scorched  by  gunpowder,  and  how  this  crime  came  to  be  so 
clumsily  and  strangely  committed,  it  is  impossible  to  discover. 
The  deceitful  character  of  Mary,  and  the  deceitful  character  of 
Elizabeth,  have  rendered  almost  every  part  of  their  joint  history 
uncertain  and  obscure.  But  I  fear  that  Mary  was  unquestion- 
ably a  party  to  her  husband's  murder,  and  that  this  was  the 
revenge  she  had  threatened.  The  Scotch  people  universally 
believed  it.  Voices  cried  out  in  the  streets  of  Edinburgh  in 
the  dead  of  the  night,  for  justice  on  the  murderess.  Placards 
Vvere  posted  by  unknown  hands  in  the  public  places,  denoun- 
cing Bothwell  as  the  murderer,  and  the  queen  as  his  accomplice  ; 
an  J  when  he  afterwards  married  her  (though  himself  already 
married),  previously  making  a  show  of  taking  her  prisoner  by 
force,  the  indignation  of  the  people  knew  no  bounds.  The  wo- 
iTien  particularly  are  described  as  having  been  quite  frantic 
against  the  queen,  and  to  have  hooted  and  cried  after  her  in 
the  streets  with  terrifi::  vehemence. 

Such  guilty  unions  seldom  prosper.  This  husband  and 
^vife  had  lived  together  but  a  month,  when  they  were  separated 
forever  by  the  success  of  a  band  of  Scotch  nobles  who  associ- 
ated against  them  for  the  protection  of  the  young  prince,  whom 
Bothwell  had  vainly  endeavored  to  lay  hold  of,  and  whom  he 
wouli  certainly  have  murdered,  if  the  Earl  of  Mar,  in  whose 
hands  the  boy  was,  had  not  been  firmly  and  honorably  faithful 
to  his  trust.  Before  this  angry  power,  Bothwell  fled  abroad, 
wliere  he  died,  a  prisoner  and  mad,  nine  miserable  years  after- 
Avards.  Mary,  being  found  by  the  associated  lords  to  deceive 
them  at  every  turn,  was  sent  a  prisoner  to  Lochleven  Castle  ; 
which,  as  it  stood  in  the  midst  of  a  lake,  could  only  be  ap- 
proached by  boat.  Here  one  Lord  Lindsay,  who  was  so  much 
of  a  brute  that  the  nobles  would  have  done  better  if  they  had 
chosen  a  mere  gentleman  for  their  messenger,  made  her  sign 
her  abdication,  and  appoint  Murray  Regent  of  Scotland.  Here, 
too,  Murray  saw  her  in  a  sorrowing  and  humbled  state. 

She  had  better  have  remained  in  the  castle  of  Lochleven, 
dull  prison  as  it  was,  with  the  rippling  of  the  lake  against  it, 
and  the  moving  shadows  of  the  water  on  the  room-walls  ;  but 
she  could  not  rest  there,  and  more  than  once  tried  to  escape. 
The  first  time  she  had  nearly  succeeded,  dressed  in  the  clothes 
of  her  own  washerwoman  ;  but,  putting  up  her  hand  to  prevent 
one  of  the  boatmen  from  lifting  her  veil,  the  men  suspected 
her,  seeing  how  white  it  was,  and  rowed  her  back  again,    A 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  z^Jt 

sh'^rt  time  afterwards,  her  fascinating  manners  enlisted  in  her 
cause  a  boy  in  the  castle,  called  the  little  Douglas,  who,  while 
the  family  were  at  supper,  stole  the  keys  of  the  great  gate,  went 
softly  out  with  the  queen,  locked  the  gate  on  the  outside,  and 
rowed  her  away  across  the  lake,  sinking  the  keys  as  they  went 
along.  On  the  opposite  shore  she  was  met  by  another  Douglas, 
and  some  few  lords  ;  and,  so  accompanied,  rode  away  on  horse- 
back to  Hamilton,  where  they  raised  three  thousand  men. 
Here  she  issued  a  proclamation  declaring  that  the  abdication 
she  had  signed  in  her  prison  was  illegal,  and  requiring  the  re- 
gent to  yield  to  his  lawful  queen.  Being  a  steady  soldier,  and 
in  no  way  discomposed,  although  he  was  without  an  army, 
Murray  pretended  to  treat  with  her,  until  he  had  collected  a 
force  about  half  equal  to  her  own,  and  then  he  r^ave  her  battle. 
In  one  quarter  of  an  hour  he  cut  down  all  her  hopes.  She  had 
another  weary  ride  on  horseback  of  sixty  long  Scotch  miles, 
and  took  shelter  at  Dundrennan  Abbey,  whence  she  lied  for 
safety  to  Elizabeth's  dominions. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  came  to  England  to  her  own  ruin, 
the  trouble  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  misery  and  death  of  many, 
in  1568.  How  she  left  it  and  the  world,  nineteen  years  after- 
wards, we  have  now  to  see. 

Second  Part. 

When  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  arrived  in  England,  without 
money,  and  even  without  any  other  clothes  than  those  she  wore, 
she  wrote  to  Elizabeth,  representing  herself  as  an  innocent  and 
injured  piece  of  royalty,  and  entreating  her  assistance  to  oblige 
her  Scottish  subjects  to  take  her  back  again  and  obey  her. 
But  as  her  character  was  already  known  in  Englnnd  to  be  a  very 
different  one  from  what  she  made  it  out  to  be,  she  was  told  in 
answer  that  she  must  first  clear  herself.  IMade  uneasy  by  this 
condition,  Mary,  rather  than  stay  in  England,  would  have  gone 
to  Spain,  or  to  France,  or  would  even  have  gone  back  to  Scot- 
land. But,  as  her  doing  either  would  have  been  likely  to 
tiouble  England  afresh,  it  was  decided  that  she  should  be  de- 
tained here.  She  first  came  to  Carlisle,  and  after  that  was 
moved  about  from  castle  to  castle,  as  was  considered  necessary  ; 
but  England  she  never  left  again. 

After  trying  very  hard  to  get  rid  of  the  necessity  of  clearing 
herself,  Mary,  advised  by  Lord  Herries,  her  best  friend  in  Eng- 
land, agreed  to  answer  the  charges  against  her,  if  the  Scottish 
noblemen  who  made  them  would  attend  to  maintain  them  be- 


£64  CHILUS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

fore  such  English  nobleman  as  Elizabeth  might  appoint  for 
that  purpose.  Accordingly,  such  an  assembly,  under  the  name 
of  a  conference,  met,  first  at  York,  and  afterwards  at  Hampton 
Court  In  its  presence  Lord  Lennox,  Darnley's  father,  openly 
charged  Mary  with  the  murder  of  his  son  ;  and  "whatever  Mary's 
friends  may  now  say  or  write  in  her  behalf,  there  is  no  doubt, 
that  when  her  brother,  Murray,  produced  against  her  a  casket 
containing  certain  guilty  letters  and  verses  which  he  stated  to 
have  passed  between  her  and  Bothwcll,  she  withdrew  from  tl-e 
mquiry.  Consequently,  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  she  was  then 
considered  guilty  by  those  who  had  the  best  opportunities  cf 
judging  of  the  truth,  and  thp.t  the  feeling  which  afterwards  arose 
in  her  behalf  was  a  very  generous,  but  not  a  very  reasonable  one. 

However,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  an  honorable  but  rather 
weak  nobleman,  p::rtly  because  Mary  was  captivating,  partly 
because  he  was  ambitious,  partly  because  he  was  over-per- 
suaded by  artful  plotters  against  Elizabeth,  conceived  a  strong 
idea  that  he  would  like  to  marry  the  Queen  of  Scots,  though 
he  was  a  little  frightened,  too,  by  the  letters  in  the  casket. 
This  idea  being  secretly  encouraged  by  some  of  the  noblemen 
of  Elizabeth's  court,  and  even  by  the  favorite  Earl  of  Leicester 
(because  it  was  objected  to  by  other  favorites  who  were  his 
rivals),  Mary  expressed  her  approval  of  it,  and  the  King  of 
France  and  the  King  of  Spain  are  supposed  to  have  done  the 
same.  It  was  net  so  quietly  planned,  though,  but  that  it  came 
to  Elizabeth's  ears,  who  warned  the  duke  "  to  be  careful  what 
sort  of  a  pillow  he  v;as  going  Co  lay  his  head  upon."  He  made 
a  humble  reply  at  the  time,  but  turned  sulky  soon  afterwards, 
and,  being  considered  dangerous,  was  sent  to  the  Tower. 

Thus  from  the  moment  of  Mary's  coming  to  England  she 
began  to  be  the  centre  of  plots  and  miseries. 

A  rise  of  the  Catholics  in  the  north  was  the  next  of  these  ; 
and  it  was  only  checked  by  many  executions  and  much  blood 
shed.  It  was  followed  by  a  great  conspiracy  of  the  pope  and 
some  of  the  Catholic  sovereigns  of  Europe  to  depose  Eliza 
beth,  place  Mary  on  the  throne,  and  restore  the  unreformeci 
religion.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  doubt  that  Mary  knew  and 
approved  of  this  ;  and  the  pope  himself  was  so  hot  in  the  mat- 
ter, that  he  issued  a  bull,  in  which  he  openly  called  Elizabeth 
the  "  pretended  Queen  "  of  England,  excommunicated  her,  and 
excommunicated  all  her  subjects  who  should  continue  to  obey 
her.  A  copy  of  this  miserable  paper  got  into  London,  and  was 
found  one  morning  publicly  posted  on  the  Bishop  of  London's 
gate.    A  great  hue  and  cry  being  raised,  another  copy  was 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  265 

found  in  the  chamber  of  a  student  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  who  con^ 
fessed,  being  put  upon  the  rack,  that  he  had  received  it  from 
one  John  Felton,  a  rich  gentleman  who  lived  across  the  Thames, 
near  Southwark.  This  John  Felton,  being  put  upon  the  rack 
too,  confessed  that  he  had  posted  the  placard  on  the  bishop'a 
gate.  For  this  offence  he  was,  within  four  days,  taken  to  St. 
Paul's  Churchyard,  and  there  hanged  and  quartered.  As  to 
the  pope's  bull,  the  people  by  the  Reformation  having  thrown 
off  the  pope,  did  not  care  much,  you  may  suppose,  for  the 
pope's  throwing  off  them.  It  was  a  mere  dirty  piece  of  paper, 
and  not  half  so  powerful  as  a  street-ballad. 

On  the  very  day  when  Felton  was  brought  to  his  trial,  the 
poor  Duke  of  Norfolk  was  released.  It  would  have  been  well 
for  him  if  he  had  kept  away  from  the  Tower  evermore,  and 
from  the  snares  that  had  taken  him  there.  But  even  while  he 
was  in  that  dismal  place  he  corresponded  with  Mary  ;  and,  as 
soon  as  he  was  out  of  it,  he  began  to  plot  again.  Being  dis- 
covered in  correspondence  with  the  pope,  with  a  view  to  a  ris- 
ing in  England  which  should  force  Elizabeth  to  consent  to  his 
marriage  with  Mary,  and  to  repeal  the  laws  against  the  Catho- 
lics, he  was  recommitted  to  the  Tower,  and  brought  to  trial. 
He  was  found  guilty  by  the  unanimous  verdict  of  the  lords  who 
tried  him,  and  was  sentenced  to  the  block. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  make  out,  at  this  distance  of  time,  and 
between  opposite  accounts,  whether  Elizabeth  really  was  a 
humane  woman,  or  desired  to  appear  so,  or  was  fearful  of 
shedding  the  blood  of  people  of  great  name  who  were  popular 
in  the  country.  Twice  she  commanded  and  countermanded 
the  execution  of  this  duke  ;  and  it  did  not  take  place  until  five 
months  after  his  trial.  The  scaffold  was  erected  on  Tower 
Hill  ;  and  there  he  died  like  a  brave  man.  He  refused  to  have 
his  eyes  bandaged,  saying  that  he  was  not  at  all  afraid  of 
death,  and  he  admitted  the  justice  of  his  sentence,  and  wa-i 
much  regretted  by  the  people. 

Although  Mary  had  shrunk  at  the  most  important  time  frM-n 
disproving  her  guilt,  she  was  very  careful  never  to  do  anythiiv^ 
that  would  admit  it.  All  such  proposals  as  were  made  to  her 
by  Elizabeth  for  her  release  required  that  admission  in  some 
form  or  other,  and  therefore  came  to  nothing.  Moreover,  both 
women  being  artful  and  treacherous,  and  neither  ever  trusting 
the  other,  it  was  not  likely  that  they  could  ever  make  an  agree- 
ment. So  the  Parliament,  aggravated  by  what  the  pope  had 
done,  made  new  and  strong  laws  against  the  spreading  of  the 
Catholic  religion  in  England,  and  declared  it  treason  in  any  one 


266  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

to  say  that  the  queen  and  her  successors  were  not  the  lawful 
sovereigns  of  England.  It  would  have  done  more  than  this  but 
for  Elizabeth's  moderation. 

Since  the  Reformation  there  had  come  to  be  three  great 
sects  of  religious  people — or  people  who  called  themselves  so 
— in  England  ;  that  is  to  say,  those  who  belonged  to  the  re- 
formed church,  those  who  belonged  to  the  unreformed  church, 
and  those  who  were  called  the  Puritans,  because  they  said  that 
they  wanted  to  have  everything  very  pure  and  plain  in  all  the 
Church  service.  These  last  were  for  the  most  part  an  uncom- 
fortable people,  who  thought  it  highly  m.eritorious  to  dress  in 
hideous  manner,  talk  through  their  noses,  and  oppose  all  harm- 
less enjoyments.  But  they  were  powerful  too,  and  very  much 
in  earnest ;  and  they  were  one  and  all  the  determined  enemies 
of  the  Queen  of  Scots.  The  Protestant  feeling  in  England  was 
further  strengthened  by  the  tremendous  cruelties  to  which  Prot- 
estants were  exposed  in  France  and  in  the  Netherlands.  Scores 
of  thousands  of  them  were  put  to  death  in  those  countries  with 
every  cruelty  that  can  be  imagined  ;  and  at  last,  in  the  autumn 
of  the  year  1575,  one  of  the  greatest  barbarities  ever  committed 
in  the  world  took  place  at  Paris. 

It  is  called  in  history.  The  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 
because  it  took  place  on  St.  Bartholemew's  Eve  The  day  fell 
on  Saturday,  the  23rd  of  August.  On  that  day  all  the  great 
leaders  of  the  Protestants  (who  were  there  called  Huguenots) 
were  assembled  together,  for  the  purpose,  as  was  represented 
to  them,  of  doing  honor  to  the  marriage  of  their  chief,  the 
young  King  of  Navarre,  with  the  sister  of  Charles  the  Ninth,  a 
miserable  young  king  who  then  occupied  the  French  throne. 
This  dull  creature  was  made  to  believe  by  his  mother,  and 
other  fierce  Catholics  about  him,  that  the  Huguenots  meant  to 
take  his  life  ;  and  he  was  persuaded  to  give  secret  orders,  that, 
on  the  tolling  of  a  great  bell,  they  should  be  fallen  upon  by  an 
overpowering  force  of  armed  men,  and  slaughtered,  wherever 
they  could  be  found.  When  the  appointed  hour  was  close  at 
hand,  the  stupid  wretch,  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  was  taken 
into  a  balcony  by  his  mother  to  see  the  atrocious  work  begun. 
The  moment  the  bell  tolled,  the  murderer  broke  forth.  Dur- 
ing all  that  night  and  the  two  next  days,  they  broke  into  the 
houses,  fired  the  houses,  shot  and  stabbed  the  Protestants, 
men,  women,  and  children,  and  flung  their  bodies  into  the 
streets.  They  were  shot  at  in  the  streets  as  they  passed  along, 
and  their  blood  ran  down  the  gutters.  Upwards  of  ten  thou- 
sand Protestants  were  killed  in  Paris  alone ;  in  all  France,  four 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  267 

or  five  times  that  number.  To  return  thanks  to  Heaven  for 
these  diaboHcal  murders,  the  pope  and  his  train  actually  went 
in  public  procession  at  Rome  ;  and  as  if  this  were  not  shame 
enough  for  them,  they  had  a  medal  struck  to  commemorate  the 
event.  But,  however  comfortable  the  wholesale  murders  were 
to  these  high  authorities,  they  had  not  that  soothing  effect  upon 
the  doll-king.  I  am  happy  to  state  that  he  never  knew  a  mo- 
ment's  peace  afterwards  ;  that  he  was  continually  crying  out 
that  he  saw  the  Huguenots  covered  with  blood  and  wounds 
falling  dead  before  him  \  and  that  he  died  within  a  year,  shriek- 
ing and  yelling  and  raving  to  that  degree,  that,  if  all  the  popes 
who  had  ever  lived  had  been  rolled  into  one,  they  would  not 
have  afforded  his  guilty  majesty  the  slightest  consolation. 

When  the  terrible  news  of  the  massacre  arrived  in  England, 
it  made  a  powerful  impression  indeed  upon  the  people.  If  they 
began  to  run  a  little  wild  against  the  Catholics  at  about  this 
time,  this  fearful  reason  for  it,  coming  so  soon  after  the  days 
of  Bloody  Queen  Mary,  must  be  remembered  in  their  excuse. 
The  court  was  not  quite  so  honest  as  the  people  ;  but  perhaps 
it  sometimes  is  not.  It  received  the  French  ambassador,  with 
all  the  lords  and  ladies  dressed  in  deep  mourning,  and  keepmg 
a  profound  silence.  Nevertheless,  a  proposal  of  marriage  which 
he  had  made  to  Elizabeth  only  two  days  before  the  eve  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  on  behalf  of  the  Duke  of  Alen9on,  the  French 
king's  brother,  a  boy  of  seventeen,  still  went  on  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  her  usual  crafty  way,  the  Queen  secretly  suppUed 
the  Huguenots  with  money  and  weapons. 

I  must  say,  that  for  a  queen  who  made  all  those  fine  speeches, 
of  which  I  have  confessed  myself  to  be  rather  tired,  about  liv- 
ing and  dying  a  maiden  queen,  Elizabeth  was  "  going  "  to  be 
married  pretty  often.  Besides  always  having  some  English 
favorite  or  other  whom  she  by  turn*^  encouraged,  and  swore  at, 
and  knocked  about, — for  the  m'-.xvien  queen  was  very  free  with 
her  fists, — she  held  this  French  duke  off  and  on,  through  sev- 
eral years.  When  he  at  last  came  over  to  England,  the  marriage 
articles  were  actually  drawn  up,  and  it  was  settled  that  the 
wedding  should  take  place  in  six  weeks.  The  Queen  was  then 
so  bent  upon  it,  that  she  prosecuted  a  poor  Puritan  named 
Stubbs,  and  a  poor  bookseller  named  Page,  for  writing  and 
publishmg  a  pamphlet  agamst  it.  Their  right  hands  were 
chopped  off  for  this  crime  :  and  poor  Stubbs,  more  loyal  than  I 
should  have  been  myself  under  the  circumstances,  immediately 
pulled  off  his  hat  with  his  left  hand,  and  cried,  "  God  save  the 
Queen  J  "     Stubbs  was  cruelly  treated  ;  for  the  marriage  never 


26S  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OP  ENGLAJ^iy. 

took  place  after  all,  though  the  queen  pledged  herself  to  the 
duke  with  a  ring  from  her  own  finger.  He  went  away,  no  bet- 
ter than  he  came,  when  the  courtship  had  lasted  some  ten  years 
altogether  ;  and  he  died  a  couple  of  years  afterwards,  mourned 
by  Elizabeth,  who  appears  to  have  been  really  fond  of  him.  it 
is  not  much  to  her  credit ;  for  he  was  a  bad  enough  member  of 
a  bad  family. 

To  return  to  the  Catholics.  There  arose  two  orders  of 
priests  who  were  very  busy  in  England,  and  who  were  much 
dreaded.  These  were  the  Jesuits  (who  were  everywhere  in  all 
sorts  of  disguises)  and  the  Seminary  Priests.  The  people  had 
a  great  horror  of  the  first,  because  they  were  known  to  have 
taught  that  murder  was  lawful  if  it  were  done  with  an  object  of 
which  they  approved  ;  and  they  had  a  great  horror  of  the  second, 
because  they  came  to  teach  the  old  religion,  and  to  be  the  suc- 
cessors of  "  Queen  Mary's  priests,"  as  those  yet  lingering  in 
England  were  called,  when  they  should  die  out.  The  severest 
laws  were  made  against  them,  and  were  most  unmercifully  exe- 
cuted. Those  who  sheltered  them  in  their  houses  often  suf- 
fered heavily  for  what  was  an  act  of  humanity ;  and  the  rack, 
that  cruel  torture  which  tore  men's  limbs  asunder,  was  con- 
stantly kept  going.  What  these  unhappy  men  confessed,  or 
what  was  ever  confessed  by  any  one  under  that  agony,  must 
always  be  received  with  great  doubt,  as  it  is  certain  that  people 
have  frequently  owmed  to  the  most  absurd  and  impossible  crimes 
to  escape  such  dreadful  suffering.  But  I  cannot  doubt  it  to 
have  been  proved  by  papers,  that  there  were  many  plots,  both 
among  the  Jesuits,  and  with  France,  and  Vv'ith  Scotland,  and 
Vv'ith  Spain,  for  the  destruction  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  for  the 
placing  of  Mary  on  the  throne,  and  for  the  revival  of  the  old 
religion. 

If  the  English  people  were  too  ready  to  believe  in  plots, 
there  were,  as  I  have  sai^  -"-ood  reasons  for  it.  When  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  was  yet  fresh  in  their  recollection, 
a  great  Protestant  Dutch  hero,  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  shot 
by  an  assassin,  who  confessed  that  he  had  been  kept  and  trained 
for  the  purpose  in  a  college  of  Jesuits.  The  Dutch,  in  this 
surprise  and  distress,  offered  to  make  Elizabeth  their  sovereign  ; 
but  she  declined  the  honor,  and  sent  them  a  small  army  instead, 
under  the  command  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  who,  although  a 
capital  court  favorite,  was  not  much  of  a  general.  He  did  so 
little  in  Holland,  that  his  campaign  there  would  probably  have 
been  forgotten,  but  for  its  occasioning  the  death  of  one  of  the 
best  writers,  the  best  knights,  and  the  best  gentlemen,  of  tLat 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  269 

or  any  age.  This  was  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who  was  wounded  by 
a  musket-ball  in  the  thigh  as  he  mounted  a  fresh  horse,  after 
havinjr  had  his  own  killed  under  him.  He  had  to  ride  back 
wounded,  a  long  distance,  and  was  very  faint  with  fatigue  and 
loss  of  blood,  when  some  water  for  which  he  had  eagerly  asked, 
was  handed  to  him.  But  he  was  so  good  and  gentle  even  then, 
tl^at  seeing  a  poor,  badly  wounded  common  soldier  lying  on  the 
ground,  looking  at  the  water  with  longing  eyes,  he  said,  ''  Thy 
necessity  1^  greater  than  mine,"  and  gave  it  up  to  him.  This 
touching  action  of  a  noble  heart  is  perhaps  as  well  known  as 
any  incident  in  history, — is  as  famous,  far  and  wide,  as  the 
biood-stained  Tower  of  London,  with  its  axe  and  block,  and 
murders  out  of  number.  So  delightful  is  an  act  of  true  human- 
ity, and  so  glad  are  mankind  to  remember  it ! 

At  home,  intelligence  of  plots  began  to  thicken  every  day* 
I  suppose  the  people  never  did  live  under  such  continual  ter- 
rors as  those  by  which  they  were  possessed  now,  of  Catholic 
risings,  and  burnings,  and  poisonings,  and  I  don't  know  what. 
Still,  we  must  always  remember  that  they  lived  near  and  clo'e 
to  awful  realities  of  that  kind,  and  that  with  their  experience  it 
was  not  difficult  to  believe  in  any  enormity.  The  government 
had  the  same  fear,  and  did  not  take  the  best  means  of  discov- 
ering the  truth  ;  for  becides  torturing  the  suspected,  it  employed 
paid  spies,  who  will  always  lie  for  their  own  profit.  It  even 
made  some  of  the  conspiracies  it  brought  to  light,  by  sending 
false  letters  to  disaffected  people,  inviting  them  to  join  in  pre 
tended  plots  which  they  too  readily  did. 

But  owQ  great  real  plot  was  at  length  discovered  ;  and  it 
ended  the  career  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  A  seminary  priest 
named  Ballard,  and  a  Spanish  soldier  named  Savage,  set  on 
and  encouraged  by  certain  French  priests,  imparted  a  design 
to  one  Antony  Babington — a  gentleman  of  fortune  in  Derby- 
shire, who  had  been  lor  some  time  a  secret  agent  of  Mary's — 
for  murdering  the  queen.  Babington  then  confided  the  scheme 
to  some  other  Catholic  gentlemen,  who  were  his  friends,  and 
they  joined  in  it  heartily.  They  were  vain,  weak-headed  young 
men  ridiculously  confident,  and  preposterously  proud  of  their 
plan  ;  for  they  got  a  gimcrack  painting  made,  of  the  six  choice 
spirits  who  were  to  murder  Elizabeth,  with  Babington,  in  an  at- 
titude, for  the  centre  figure.  Two  of  their  number,  however, 
one  of  whom  was  a  priest,  kept  Elizabeth's  wisest  minister.  Sir 
Francis  Walsingham,  acquainted  with  the  whole  project  from 
the  first.  The  conspirators  were  completely  deceived  to  ti.e 
final  point,  when  Babington  gave  Savage,  because   he   was 


270 


A  CHILiyS  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


shabby,  a  ring  from  his  finger,  and  some  money  from  his  purse, 
wherevvilh  to  buy  himself  new  clothes  in  which  to  kill  the  queen. 
Walsingham,  having  then  full  evidence  against  the  whole  band, 
and  two  letters  of  Mary's  besides,  resolved  to  seize  them.  Sus- 
pecting something  wrong,  they  stole  out  of  the  cily,  one  by  one, 
and  hid  themselves  in  St.  John's  Wood,  and  other  places,  which 
really  were  hiding-places  then ;  but  they  were  all  taken,  and  all 
executed.  When  they  were  seized,  a  gentleman  was  sent  from 
court  to  inform  Mary  of  the  fact,  and  of  her  being  involved  in 
the  discovery.  Her  friends  have  complained  that  she  was  kept 
in  very  hard  and  severe  custody.  It  does  not  appear  very 
likely,  for  she  was  going  out  a-hunting  that  very  morning. 

Queen  Elizabeth  had  been  warned  long  ago,  by  one  in 
France  who  had  good  information  of  what  was  secretly  doing, 
that,  in  holding  Mary  alive,  she  held  "  the  wolf  who  would  de- 
vour her."  The  Bishop  of  London  had,  more  lately,  given  the 
queen's  favorite  minister  the  advice  in  writing,  "forthwith  to 
cut  off  the  Scottish  queen's  head."  The  question  now  was, 
what  to  do  with  her.  The  Earl  of  Leicester  wrote  a  little  note 
home  from  Holland,  recommending  that  she  should  be  quietly 
poisoned  ;  that  noble  favorite  having  accustomed  his  mind,  it 
is  possible,  to  remedies  of  that  nature.  His  black  advice,  how- 
ever, was  disregarded  ;  and  she  was  brought  to  trial  at  Fother- 
ingay  Castle  in  Northamptonshire,  before  a  tribunal  of  forty, 
composed  of  both  religions.  There,  and  in  the  Star  Chamber 
at  Westminster,  the  trial  lasted  a  fortnight.  She  defended  her- 
self with  great  ability,  but  could  only  deny  the  confessions  that 
had  been  made  by  Babington  and  others  ;  could  only  call  her 
own  letters,  produced  against  her  by  her  own  secretaries,  for- 
geries ;  and,  in  short,  could  only  deny  everything.  She  was 
found  guilty,  and  declared  to  have  incurred  tlie  penalty  of 
death.  The  Parliament  met,  approved  the  sentence,  and  prayed 
the  queen  to  have  it  executed.  The  queen  replied  that  she  re- 
quested them  to  consider  whether  no  means  could  be  found  ot 
saving  Mary's  life  without  endangering  her  own.  The  Parlia- 
ment rejoined.  No  ;  and  the  citizens  illuminated  their  houses 
and  lighted  bonfires,  in  token  of  their  joy  that  all  these  plots 
and  troubles  were  to  be  ended  by  the  death  of  the  Quee*i  of 
Scots. 

She,  feeling  sure  that  her  time  was  now  come,  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Queen  of  Eir^land,  making  three  entreaties  :  first,  that 
she  might  be  buried  in  France  ;  secondly,  that  she  might  not 
be  executed  in  secret,  but  before  her  servants  and  some  others  ; 
thirdly  that,  after  her  death,  her  servants  should  not  be  mo- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.  271 

lasted,  but  should  be  suffered  to  go  home  with  the  legacies  she 
left  them.  It  was  an  affecting  letter  ;  and  Elizabeth  shed  tears 
over  it,  but  sent  no  answer.  Then  came  a  special  ambassador 
from  France,  and  another  from  Scotland,  to  intercede  for  Mary's 
life ;  and  then  the  nation  began  to  clamor,  more  and  more,  for 
her  death. 

What  the  real  feelings  or  intentions  of  Elizabeth  were,  can 
never  be  known  now ;  but  I  strongly  suspect  her  of  only  wish- 
ing one  thing  more  than  Mary's  death,  and  that  was  to  keep 
free  of  the  blame  of  it.  On  the  ist  of  February,  1587,  Lord 
Burleigh  having  drawn  out  the  warrant  for  the  execution,  the 
queen  ent  to  the  Secretary  Davison  to  bring  it  to  her  that 
she  might  sign  it ;  which  she  did.  Next  day,  when  Davison 
told  her  it  was  sealed  she  angrily  asked  him  why  such  haste 
was  necessary.  Next  day  but  one  she  joked  about  it,  and  swore 
a  little.  Again  next  day  but  one,  she  seemed  to  complain  that 
it  was  not  yet  done  ;  but  still  she  would  not  be  plain  with  those 
about  her.  So,  on  the  7th,  the  Earls  of  Kent  and  Shrewsbury, 
with  the  Sheriff  of  Northamptonshire,  came  with  the  warrant 
to  Fotheringay,  to  tell  the  Queen  of  Scots  to  prepare  for 
death. 

When  those  messengers  of  ill  omen  were  gone,  Mary  made 
a  frugal  supper,  drank  to  her  servants,  read  over  her  will,  went 
to  bed,  slept  for  some  hours,  and  then  arose  and  passed  the  re- 
mainder of  the  night  saying  prayers.  In  the  morning  she 
dressed  herself  in  her  best  clothes  ;  and  at  eight  o'cock,  when 
the  sheriff  came  for  her  to  her  chapel,  took  leave  of  her  ser- 
vants who  were  there  assembled  praying  with  her,  and  went 
down  stairs,  carrying  a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  crucifix  in  the 
other.  Two  of  her  women  and  four  of  her  men  were  allowed 
to  be  present  in  the  hall,  where  a  low  scaffold,  only  two  feet 
from  the  ground,  was  erected  and  covered  with  black  ;  and 
where  the  executioner  from  the  Tower  and  his  assistant  stood, 
dressed  in  black  velvet.  The  hall  was  full  of  people.  While 
the  sentence  was  being  read,  she  sat  upon  a  stool ;  and  when 
it  was  finished,  she  again  denied  her  guilt,  as  she  had  done  be- 
fore. The  Earl  of  Kent  and  the  Dean  of  Peterborough,  in 
their  Protestant  zeal,  made  some  very  unnecessary  speeches  to 
her ;  to  which  she  replied  she  died  in  the  Catholic  religion,  and 
they  need  not  trouble  themselves  about  that  matter.  When 
her  head  and  neck  were  uncovered  by  the  executioners,  she 
said  that  she  had  not  been  used  to  be  undressed  by  such  hands, 
01  before  so  much  company.  Finally,  one  of  her  women  fastened 
z  doth  over  her  face  ;  and  she  laid  her  neck  upon  the  block, 


72 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


and  repeated  more  than  once  in  Latin,  "  Into  thy  hands,  O 
Lord  !  I  commend  my  spirit."  Some  say  her  head  was  struck 
off  in  two  blows,  some  say  in  three.  However  that  be,  when 
it  was  held  up,  streaming  with  blood,  the  real  hair  beneath  the 
false  hair  she  had  long  worn  was  seen  to  be  as  gray  as  that  of 
a  woman  of  seventy,  though  she  was  at  that  time  only  in  her 
forty-sixth  year.     All  her  beauty  was  gone. 

But  she  was  beautiful  enough  to  her  little  dog,  who  cowered 
under  her  dress,  frightened,  when  she  went  upon  the  scaffold, 
and  who  lay  down  beside  her  headless  body  when  all  her 
earthly  sorrows  were  over. 

Third  Part. 

On  its  being  formally  made  known  to  Elizabeth  that  the 
sentence  had  been  executed  on  the  Queen  of  Scots,  she  showed 
the  utmost  grief  and  rage,  drove  her  favorites  from  her  with 
violent  indignation,  and  sent  Davison  to  the  Tower;  from 
which  place  he  was  only  released  in  the  end  by  paying  an  im- 
mense fine,  which  completely  ruined  him.  Elizabeth  not  only 
over-acted  her  part  in  making  these  pretences,  but  most  basely 
reduced  to  poverty  one  of  her  faithful  servants  for  no  other 
fault  than  obeying  her  commands. 

James,  King  of  Scotland,  Mary's  son,  made  a  show  likewise 
of  being  very  angry  on  the  occasion  ;  but  he  was  a  pensioner 
of  England  to  the  amount  of  five  thousand  pounds  a  year; 
and  he  had  known  very  little  of  his  mother,  and  he  possibly 
regarded  her  as  the  murderer  of  his  father,  and  he  soon  took 
it  quietly. 

Philip,  King  of  Spain,  however,  threatened  to  do  greater 
things  than  ever  had  been  done  yet,  to  set  up  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion, and  punish  Protestant  England.  Elizabeth,  hearing 
that  he  and  the  Prince  of  Parma  were  making  great  prepara- 
tions for  this  purpose,  in  order  to  be  beforehanded  with  them  sent 
out  Admiral  Drake  (a  famous  navigator,  who  had  sailed  about 
the  world,  and  had  already  brought  great  plunder  from  Spain) 
',0  the  port  of  Cadiz,  where  he  burnt  a  hundred  vessels  full  of 
stores.  This  great  loss  obliged  the  Spaniards  to  put  off  the 
invasion  for  a  year ;  but  it  was  none  the  less  formidable  for 
that,  amounting  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  ships,  nineteen  thou- 
sand soldiers,  eight  thousand  sailors,  two  thousand  slaves,  and 
between  two  and  three  thousand  great  guns.  England  was  not 
idle  in  making  ready  to  resist  this  great  force.  All  the  men  be- 
tween sixteen  years  old  aud  sixty  were  trained  and  drilled  j  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH.    •  gyj 

national  fleet  of  ships  (in  number  only  thirty-four  at  first)  was 
enlarged  by  public  contributions,  and  by  private  ships,  fitted 
out  by  noblemen ;  the  city  of  London,  of  its  own  accord,  fur- 
nished double  the  number  of  ships  and  men  that  it  was  re- 
quired to  provide ;  and,  if  ever  the  national  spirit  was  up  in 
England,  it  was  up  all  through  the  country  to  resist  the  Span- 
iards. Some  of  the  queen's  advisers  were  for  seizing  the  prin- 
cipal English  Catholics  and  putting  them  to  death  ;  but  the 
queen — who,  to  her  honor,  used  to  say  that  she  would  never 
believe  any  ill  of  her  subjects  which  a  parent  would  not  be- 
lieve of  her  own  children — rejected  the  advice,  and  only  con- 
fined a  few  of  those  who  were  the  most  suspected  in  the  fens 
in  Lincolnshire.  The  great  body  of  Catholics  deserved  this 
confidence ;  for  they  behaved  most  loyally,  nobly,  and  bravely. 
So,  with  all  England  firing  up  like  one  strong,  angry  man, 
and  with  both  sides  of  the  Thames  fortified,  and  with  the  sol- 
diers under  arms,  and  with  the  sailors  in  their  ships,  the  coun- 
try waited  for  the  coming  of  the  proud  Spanish  fleet,  which 
was  called  The  Invincible  Armada.  The  queen  herself,  riding 
in  armor  on  a  white  horse,  and  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  the  Earl 
of  Leicester  holding  her  bridle-rein,  made  a  brave  speech  to 
the  troops  at  Tilbury  Fort,  opposite  Gravesend,  which  was  re- 
ceived with  such  enthusiasm  as  is  seldom  known.  Then  came 
the  Spanish  Armada  into  the  English  Channel,  sailing  along  in 
the  form  of  a  half-moon,  of  such  great  size  that  it  was  seven 
miles  broad.  But  the  English  were  quickly  upon  it ;  and  woe 
then  to  all  the  Spanish  ships  that  dropped  a  litde  out  of  the  half- 
moon,  for  the  English  took  them  instantly  !  And  it  soon  ap- 
peared that  the  great  Armada  was  anything  but  invincible ; 
for,  on  a  summer  night,  bold  Drake  sent  eight  blazing  fire-ships 
right  into  the  midst  of  it.  In  terrible  consternation,  the  Span- 
iards tried  to  get  out  to  sea,  and  so  became  dispersed  ;  the 
English  pursued  them  at  a  great  advantage.  A  storm  came 
on,  and  drove  the  Spaniards  among  rocks  and  shoals ;  and  the 
swift  end  of  the  invincible  fleet  was,  that  it  lost  thirty  great 
ships  and  ten  thousand  men,  and  defeated,  and  disgraced, 
sailed  home  again.  Being  afraid  to  go  by  the  English  Chan- 
nel, it  sailed  all  around  Scotland  and  Ireland  ;  some  of  the 
ships  getting  cast  away  on  the  latter  coast  in  bad  weather,  the 
Irish,  who  were  a  kind  of  savages,  plundered  those  vessels,  and 
killed  their  crews.  So  ended  this  great  attempt  to  invade  and 
conquer  England.  And  I  think  it  will  be  a  long  time  before 
any  other  invincible  fleet,  coming  to  England  with  the  same 
object,  will  fare  much  better  than  the  Spanish  Armada, 

43 


374 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


Though  the  Spanish  king  had  had  this  bitter  taste  of  Eng- 
lish bravery,  he  was  so  little  the  wiser  for  it,  as  still  to  enter- 
tain his  old  designs,  and  even  to  conceive  the  absurd  idea  of 
placing  his  daughter  on  the  Enghsh  throne.  But  the  Earl  of 
Essex,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Sir  Thomas  Howard,  and  some 
other  distinguished  leaders,  put  to  sea  from  Plymouth,  entered 
the  port  of  Cadiz  once  more,  obtained  a  complete  victory  over 
the  shipping  assembled  there,  and  got  possession  of  the  town. 
In  obedience  to  the  queen's  express  instructions,  they  behaved 
with  great  humanity ;.  and  the  principal  loss  of  the  Spaniards 
was  a  vast  sum  of  money  which  they  had  to  pay  for  ransom. 
This  was  one  of  many  gallant  achievements  on  the  sea,  effected 
in  this  reign.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  himself,  after  marrying  a 
maid  of  honor,  and  giving  offence  to  the  maiden  queen  thereby, 
had  already  sailed  to  South  America  in  search  of  gold. 

The  Earl  of  Leicester  was  now  dead  ;  and  so  was  Sir 
Thomas  Walsingham,  whom  Lord  Burleigh  was  soon  to  follow. 
The  principal  favorite  was  the  Earl  of  Essex,  a  spirited  and 
handsome  man,  a  favorite  with  the  people  too,  as  well  as  with 
the  queen,  and  possessed  of  many  admirable  qualities.  It  was 
much  debated  at  court  whether  there  should  be  peace  with 
Spain,  or  no^  and  he  was  very  urgent  for  war.  He  also  tried 
hard  to  have  his  own  way  in  the  appointment  of  a  deputy  to 
govern  in  Ireland.  One  day,  while  this  question  was  in  dis- 
pute, he  hastily  took  offence,  and  turned  his  back  upon  the 
queen  ;  as  a  gentle  reminder  of  which  impropriety,  the  queen 
gave  him  a  tremendous  box  on  the  ear,  and  told  him  to  go  to 
the  devil.  He  went  home  instead,  and  did  not  reappear  at 
court  for  half  a  year  or  so,  when  he  and  the  queen  were  recon- 
ciled, though  never  (as  some  suppose)  thoroughly. 

From  this  time  the  fate  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  that  of  the 
queen  seemed  to  be  blended  together.  The  Irish  were  still 
perpetually  quarrelling  and  fighting  among  themselves  ;  and 
he  went  over  to  Ireland  as  lord-lieutenant,  to  the  great  joy  of 
his  enemies  (Sir  Walter  Raleigh  among  the  rest),  who  were 
glad  to  have  so  dangerous  a  rival  far  off.  Not  being  by  any 
means  successful  there,  and  knowing  that  his  enemies  would 
take  advantage  of  that  circumstance  to  injure  him  with  the 
queen,  he  came  home  again,  though  against  her  orders.  The 
queen,  being  taken  by  surprise  when  he  appeared  before  her, 
gave  him  her  hand  to  kiss,  and  he  was  overjoyed,  though  it  was 
not  a  very  lovely  hand  by  this  time  ;  but,  in  the  course  of  the 
same  day,  she  ordered  him  to  confine  himself  to  his  room,  and 
two  or  three  days  afterwards  had  taken  him  into  custody.     With 


ENGLAND  UNDER  ELIZABETH. 


275 


the  same  sort  of  caprice, — and  as  capricious  an  old  woman  she 
now  was  as  ever  wore  a  crown,  or  a  liead  either, — she  sent  him 
broth  from  her  own  table  on  his  falling  ill  from  anxiety,  and 
cried  about  him. 

He  was  a  man  who  could  find  comfort  and  occupation  in 
his  books,  and  he  did  so  for  a  time  ;  not  the  least  happy  time, 
I  daresay,  of  his  life.  But  it  happened,  unfortunately  for  him, 
that  he  held  a  monopoly  in  sweet  wines,  which  means  that  no- 
body could  sell  them  without  purchasing  his  permission.  This 
right,  which  was  only  for  a  term,  expiring,  he  applied  to  have 
it  renewed.  The  queen  refused,  with  the  rather  strong  observa- 
tion,— but  she  did  make  strong  observations, — that  an  unruly 
beast  must  be  stinted  in  his  food.  Upon  this  the  angry  earl, 
who  had  been  already  deprived  of  many  offices,  thought  him- 
self in  danger  of  complete  ruin,  and  turned  against  the  queen, 
whom  he  called  a  vain  old  woman,  who  had  grown  as  crooked 
in  her  mind  as  she  had  in  her  figure.  These  uncomplimentary 
expressions  the  ladies  of  the  court  immediately  snapped  up, 
and  carried  to  the  queen,  whom  they  did  not  put  in  a  better 
temper,  you  may  believe.  The  same  court  ladies,  when  they 
had  beautiful  dark  hair  of  their  own,  used  to  wear  false  red 
hair,  to  be  like  the  queen.  So  they  were  not  very  high-spirited 
ladies,  however  high  in  rank. 

The  worst  object  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  some  friends  of 
his  who  used  to  meet  at  Lord  Southampton's  house,  was  to  ob- 
tain possession  of  the  queen,  and  oblige  her  by  force  to  dismiss 
her  ministers,  and  change  her  favorites.  On  Saturday,  the  7th 
of  February,  1606,  the  council  suspecting  this,  summoned  the 
earl  to  come  before  them.  He,  pretending  to  be  ill,  declined. 
It  was  then  settled,  among  his  friends,  that  as  the  next  day 
would  be  Sunday,  when  many  of  the  citizens  usually  assembled 
at  the  Cross  by  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  he  should  make  one  bold 
effort  to  induce  them  to  rise,  and  follow  him  to  the  palace. 

So,  on  the  Sunday  morning,  he  and  a  small  body  of  ad- 
herents started  out  of  his  house, — Essex  House  by  the  Strand, 
with  steps  to  the  river, — having  first  shut  up  in  it,  as  prisoners 
some  members  of  the  council  who  came  to  examine  him,  and 
hurried  into  the  city  with  the  earl  at  their  head,  crying  out, 
*'  For  the  queen  !  for  the  queen  !  A  plot  is  laid  for  my  life." 
No  one  heeded  them  however ;  and,  when  they  came  to  St. 
Paul's,  there  were  no  citizens  there.  In  the  mean  time  the 
prisoners  at  Essex  House  had  been  released  by  one  of  the 
earl's  own  friends ;  he  had  been  promptly  proclaimed  a  traitor 
in  the  city  itself  j  and  the  streets  were  barricaded  with  carts, 


2  76  A  CHILD'S  HISTOR\    OF  ENGLAND. 

and  guarded  by  soldiers.  The  earl  got  back  to  his  house  by 
water,  with  difficulty  ;  and,  after  an  attempt  to  defend  his  house 
against  the  troops  and  cannon  by  which  it  was  surrounded, 
gave  himself  up  that  night.  He  was  brought  to  trial  on  the 
19th,  and  found  guilty;  on  the  25th he  was  executed  on  Tower 
Hill,  where  he  died,  at  thirty-four  years  old,  both  courageously 
and  penitently.  His  stepfather  suffered  with  him.  His  enemy, 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  stood  near  the  scaffold  all  the  time,  but 
not  so  near  as  we  shall  see  him  stand,  before  we  finish  his  his- 
tory. 

In  this  case,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  and 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  the  queen  had  commanded  and  counter- 
manded, and  again  commanded  the  execution.  It  is  probable 
that  the  death  of  her  young  and  gallant  favorite,  in  the  prime 
of  his  good  qualities,  was  never  off  her  mind  afterwards ;  but 
she  held  out,  the  same  vain,  obstinate,  and  capricious  woman, 
for  another  year.  Then  she  danced  before  her  court  on  a  state 
occasion,  and  cut,  I  should  think,  a  mighty  ridiculous  figure, 
doing  so  in  an  immense  ruff,  stomacher,  and  wig,  at  seventy 
years  old.  For  another  year  still,  she  held  out,  but  without 
any  more  dancing,  and  as  a  moody,  sorrowful,  broken  creature. 
At  last,  on  the  loth  of  March,  1603,  having  been  ill  of  a  very 
bad  cold,  and  made  worse  by  the  death  of  the  Countess  of 
Nottingham,  who  was  her  intimate  friend,  she  fell  into  a  stupor, 
and  was  supposed  to  be  dead.  She  recovered  her  conscious- 
ness, however,  and  then  nothing  would  induce  her  to  go  to 
bed  ;  for  she  said  that  she  knew  that  if  she  did,  she  should 
never  get  up  again.  There  she  lay  for  ten  days,  on  cushions 
on  the  floor,  without  any  food,  until  the  lord  admiral  got  her 
into  bed  at  last,  partly  by  persuasion  and  partly  by  main  force. 
When  they  asked  her  who  should  succeed  her,  she  replied  that 
her  seat  had  been  the  seat  of  kings,  and  that  she  would  have 
for  her  successor,  "  No  rascal's  son,  but  a  king's."  Upon  this, 
the  lords  present  stared  at  one  another,  and  took  the  liberty  of 
asking  whom  she  meant ;  to  which  she  replied,  "  Whom  should 
I  mean,  but  our  cousin  of  Scotland  ?  "  This  was  on  the  23d 
of  March.  They  asked  her  once  again  that  day  after  she  was 
speechless,  whether  she  was  still  in  the  same  mind  ?  She 
struggled  in  her  bed,  and  joined  her  hands  over  her  head  in 
the  form  of  a  crown,  as  the  only  reply  she  could  make.  At 
three  o'clock  the  next  morning,  she  very  quietly  died,  in  the 
forty-fifth  year  of  her  reign. 

Her  reign  had  been  a  glorious  one,  and  is  made  forever 
iP^morable   by  the   distinguished   men   who   flourished  in  it. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  277 

Apart  from  the  great  voyagers,  statesmen,  and  scholars,  whom 
it  produced,  the  names  of  Bacon,  Spenser,  and  Shakespeare, 
will  always  be  remembered  with  pride  and  veneration  by  the 
civilized  world,  and  will  always  impart  (though  with  no  great 
reason  perhaps)  some  portion  of  their  lustre  to  the  name  of 
Elizabeth  herself.  It  was  a  great  reign  for  discovery,  for  com- 
merce, and  for  English  enterprise  and  spirit  in  general.  It  was 
a  great  reign  for  the  Protestant  religion,  and  for  the  reforma- 
tion which  made  England  free.  The  queen  was  very  popular, 
and,  in  her  progresses,  or  journeys  about  her  dominions,  wa> 
everywhere  received  with  the  liveliest  joy.  I  think  the  truth 
is,  that  she  was  not  half  so  good  as  she  had  been  made  out, 
and  not  half  so  bad  as  she  had  been  made  out.  She  had  her 
fine  qualities  ;  but  she  was  coarse,  capricious,  and  treacherous, 
and  had  all  the  faults  of  an  excessively  vain  j'oung  woman  long 
after  she  was  an  old  one.  On  the  whole,  she  had  a  great  deal 
too  much  of  her  father  in  her  to  please  me. 

Many  improvements  and  luxuries  were  introduced,  in  the 
course  of  these  five-and-forty  years,  in  the  general  manner  of 
livmg  ;  but  cock-fighting,  bull-baiting,  and  bear-baiting  were 
still  the  national  amusements  ;  and  a  coach  was  so  rarely  seen, 
and  was  such  an  ugly  and  cumbersome  affair  when  it  was  seen, 
that  even  the  queen  herself,  on  many  high  occasions,  rode  on 
horseback  on  a  pillion  behind  the  lord  chancellor. 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   JAMES  THE  FIRST. 

Our  cousin  of  Scotland"  was  ugly,  awkward,  and  shuf- 
fling, both  in  mind  and  person.  His  tongue  was  much  loo 
large  for  his  mouth,  his  legs  were  much  too  weak  for  his  boch;, 
and  his  dull  goggle-eyes  stared  and  rolled  like  an  idiot's.  He 
was  cunning,  covetous,  wasteful,  idle,  drunken,  greedy,  dirty, 
cowardly,  a  great  swearer,  and  the  most  conceited  man  on 
earth.  His  figure — what  is  commonly  called  rickety  from  his 
birth — presented  a  most  ridiculous  appearance,  dressed  in 
thick  padded  clothes,  as  a  safeguard  against  being  stabbed  (of 
which  he  lived  in  continual  fear),  of  a  grass-green  color  from 
head  to  foot,  with  a  hunting-horn  dangling  at  his  side  instead 


278  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

of  a  sword,  and  his  hat  and  feather  sticking  over  one  eye,  or 
hanging  on  the  back  of  his  head,  as  he  happened  to  toss  it  on. 
He  used  to  loll  on  the  necks  of  his  favorite  courtiers,  and  slob- 
ber their  faces,  and  kiss  and  pinch  their  cheeks  ;  and  the 
greatest  favorite  he  ever  had  used  to  sign  himself,  in  his  letters 
to  his  royal  master,  his  majesty's  "  dog  and  slave"  and  used 
to  address  his  majesty  as  "  His  Sowship."  His  majesty  was 
the  worst  rider  ever  seen,  and  thought  himself  the  best.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  impertinent  talkers  (in  the  broadest 
Scotch)  ever  heard,  and  boasted  of  being  unanswerable  in  all 
manner  of  argument.  He  wrote  some  of  the  most  wearisome 
treatises  ever  heard, — among  others,  a  book  upon  witchcraft,  in 
which  he  was  a  devoted  believer, — and  thought  himself  a  prod- 
igy of  authorship.  He  thought  and  wrote  and  said,  that  a  king 
had  a  right  to  make  and  unmake  what  laws  he  pleased,  and 
ought  to  be  accountable  to  nobody  on  earth.  This  is  the 
plain,  true  character  of  the  personage  whom  the  greatest  man 
about  the  court  praised  and  flattered  to  that  degree  that  I 
doubt  if  there  be  anything  much  more  shameful  in  the  annals 
of  human  nature. 

He  came  to  the  English  throne  with  great  ease.  The 
miseries  of  a  disputed  succession  had  been  felt  so  long  and  so 
dreadfully,  that  he  v/as  proclaimed  within  a  few  hours  of 
Elizabeth's  death,  and  was  accepted  by  the  nation,  even  with- 
out being  asked  to  give  any  pledge  that  he  would  govern  well, 
or  that  he  would  redress  crying  grievances.  He  took  a  month 
to  come  from  Edinburgh  to  London  ;  and,  by  way  of  exercising 
his  new  power,  hanged  a  pickpocket  on  the  journey  without 
any  trial,  and  knighted  everybody  he  could  lay  hold  of.  He 
made  two  hundred  knights  before  he  got  to  his  palace  in  Lon^ 
don,  and  seven  hundred  before  he  had  been  in  it  three  months. 
He  also  shovelled  sixty-two  new  peers  into  the  House  of  Lords  ; 
and  there  was  a  pretty  large  sprinkling  of  Scotchmen  among 
them,  you  may  believe. 

His  Sowship's  prime  minister,  Cecil  (for  I  cannot  do  better 
than  call  his  majesty  what  his  favorite  called  him),  was  the 
enemy  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  and  also  of  Sir  Walter's  political 
friend.  Lord  Cobham  ;  and  his  Sowship's  first  trouble  was  a 
plot  originated  by  these  two,  and  entered  into  by  some  others, 
with  the  old  object  of  seizing  the  king,  and  keeping  him  m 
imprisonment  until  he  should  change  his  ministers.  There 
were  Catholic  priests  in  the  plot,  and  there  were  Puritan  noble- 
men too;  for  although  the  Catholics  and  Puritans  were  stron^^ly 
opposed  to  each  other,  they  united  at  this  time  against  his  Sow- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  279 

ship,  because  they  knew  that  he  had  a  design  against  both, 
after  pretending  to  be  friends  to  each, — this  design  being  to 
have  only  one  high    and  convenient  form  of    the  Protestant 
religion,    which   everybody   should  be    bound    to   belong    to, 
whether  they  liked  it  or  not.     This  plot  was  mixed  up  with 
another,  which  may  or  may  not  have  had  some  reference  to 
placing  on  the  throne,  at  some  time,  the  Lady  Arabella  Stuart, 
whose  misfortune  it  was  to  be  the  daughter  of  the  younger 
brother  of  his  Sowship's  father,  but  who  was   quite  innocent  of 
any  part  in  the  scheme.     Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  accused  on 
the  confession  of  Lord  Cobham, — a  miserable  creature,  who 
said  one  thing  at  one  time,  and  another  thing  at  another  time, 
and  could  be  relied  upon  in  nothing.     The  trial  of  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  lasted  from  eight  in  the  morning  until  nearly  midnight. 
He  defended  himself  with  such  eloquence,  genius,  and  spirit 
against  all  accusations,  and  against  the  insults  of  Coke,  the 
Attorney-General, — who,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  time, 
foully  abused  him, — that  those  who  went  there  detesting  the 
prisoner  came  away  admiring  him,  and  declaring  that  anything 
so  wonderful  and  so  captivating  was  never  heard.     He  was 
found  guilty,  nevertheless,  and  sentenced  to  death.     Execution 
was  deferred,  and  he  was  taken  to  the  Tower.     The  two  Cath- 
olic priests,  less  fortunate,  were  executed  with  the  usual  atro- 
city ;  and  Lord  Cobham  and  two  others  were  pardoned  on  the 
scaffold.     His  Sowship  thought  it  wonderfully  knowing  in  him 
to  surprise  the  people  by  pardoning  these  three  at  the  very 
block ;  but  blundering  and  bungling,  as  usual,  he  had  very 
nearly  overreached  himself ;  for  the  messenger  on  horseback, 
who  brought  the  pardon,  came  so  late,  that  he  was  pushed  to 
the  outside  of  the  crowd,  and  was  obliged  to  shout  and  roar 
out  what  he  came  for.     The  miserable  Cobham  did  not  gain 
much  by  being  spared  that  day.     He  lived,  both  as  a  prisoner 
and  a  beggar,  utterly  despised  and  miserably  poor,  for  thirteen 
years,  and  then  died  in  an  old  out-house  belonging  to  one  of 
his  former  servants. 

This  plot  got  rid  of,  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  safely  shut  up 
in  the  Tower,  his  Sowship  held  a  great  dispute  with  the 
Puritans  on  their  presenting  a  petition  to  him,  and  had  it  all 
his  own  way, — not  so  very  wonderful,  as  he  would  talk  continu- 
ally, and  would  not  hear  anybody  else, — and  filled  the  bishops 
with  admiration.  It  was  comfortably  settled  that  there  was  to 
be  only  one  form  of  religion,  and  that  all  men  were  to  think 
exactly  alike.  But  although  this  was  arranged  two  centuries 
and  a  half  ago,  and  although  the  arrangement  was  supported 


28o  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

by  much  fining  and  imprisonment,  I  do  not  find  that  it  is  quite 
successful  even  yet. 

His  Sowship,  having  that  uncommonly  high  opinion  of  him- 
self as  a  king,  had  a  very  low  opinion  of  parliament  as  a  power 
that  audaciously  wanted  to  control  him.  When  he  called  his 
first  parliament  after  he  had  been  king  a  year,  he  accordingly 
thought  that  he  would  take  pretty  high  ground  with  them,  and 
told  them  that  he  commanded  them  "  as  ar  absolute  king." 
The  Parliament  thought  those  strong  words,  and  saw  the  ne- 
cessity of  upholding  their  authority.  His  Sowship  had  three 
children :  Prince  Henry,  Prince  Charles,  and  the  Princess 
Elizabeth.  It  would  have  been  well  for  one  of  these,  and  we 
shall  too  soon  see  which,  if  he  had  learnt  a  little  wisdom  con- 
cerning parliaments  from  his  father's  obstinacy. 

Now,  the  people  still  laboring  under  their  old  dread  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  this  Parliament  revived  and  strengthened 
the  severe  laws  against  it.  And  this  so  angered  Robert 
Catesby,  a  restless  Catholic  gentleman  of  an  old  family,  that 
he  formed  one  of  the  most  desperate  and  terrible  designs  ever 
conceived  in  the  mind  of  man, — no  less  a  scheme  than  the 
Gunpowder  Plot. 

His  object  was,  when  the  king,  lords,  and  commons  should 
be  assembled  at  the  next  opening  of  parliament  to  blow  them 
up,  one  and  all,  with  a  great  mine  of  gunpowder.  The  first 
person  to  whom  he  confided  this  horrible  idea  was  Thomas 
Winter,  a  Worcestershire  gentleman  who  had  served  in  the 
army  abroad,  and  had  been  secretly  employed  in  Catholic  pro- 
jects. While  Winter  was  yet  undecided,  and  when  he  had  gone 
over  to  the  Netherlands,  to  learn  from  the  Spanish  ambassador 
there  whether  there  was  any  hope  of  Catholics  being  relieved 
through  the  intercession  of  the  king  of  Spain  with  his  Sowship, 
he  found  at  Ostend  a  tall,  dark,  daring  man,  whom  he  had 
known  when  they  were  both  soldiers  abroad,  and  whose  name 
was  Guido — or  Guy — Fawkes.  Resolved  to  join  the  plot,  he 
proposed  it  to  this  man,  knowing  him  to  be  the  man  for  any 
desperate  deed,  and  they  two  came  back  to  England  together. 
Here  they  admitted  two  other  conspirators, — Thomas  Percy, 
related  to  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  and  John  Wright,  his 
brother-in-law\  All  these  met  together  in  a  solitary  house  m 
the  open  fields  which  were  then  near  Clement's  Inn,  now  a 
closely  blocked  up  part  of  London ;  and  when  they  had  all 
taken  the  oath  of  secrecy,  Catesby  told  the  rest  what  his  plan 
was.  They  then  went  up  stairs  mto  a  garret,  and  received  the 
sacrament  from  Father  Gerard,  a  Jesuit,  who  is  said  not  to 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  28 1 

have  known  actually  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  but  who,  I  think, 
must  have  had  his  suspicions  that  there  was  something  desperate 
afoot. 

Percy  was  a  gentleman  pensioner  ;  and  as  he  had  occasional 
duties  to  perform  about  the  court,  then  kept  at  Whitehall,  there 
would  be  nothing  suspicious  in  his  living  at  Westminster.  So, 
having  looked  well  about  him,  and  having  found  a  house  to 
let,  the  back  of  which  joined  the  Parliament  House,  he  hired  it 
of  a  person  named  Ferris,  for  the  purpose  of  undermining  the 
wall.  Having  got  possession  of  this  house,  the  conspirators 
hired  another  on  the  Lambeth  side  of  the  Thames,  which  they 
used  as  a  storehouse  for  wood,  gunpowder,  and  other  com- 
bustible matters.  These  were  to  be  removed  at  night  (and 
afterwards  were  removed),  bit  by  bit,  to  the  house  at  West- 
minster ;  and  that  there  might  be  some  trusty  person  to  keep 
watch  over  the  Lambeth  stores,  they  admitted  another  con- 
spirator, by  name  Robert  Kay,  a  very  poor  Catholic  gentleman. 

All  these  arrangements  had  been  made  some  months  ;  and 
it  was  a  dark  wintry  December  night,  when  the  conspirators, 
who  had  been  in  the  mean  time  dispersed  to  avoid  observation, 
met  in  the  house  at  Westminster,  and  began  to  dig.  They  had 
laid  in  a  good  stock  of  eatables,  to  avoid  going  in  and  out,  and 
they  dug  and  dug  with  great  ardor.  But  the  wall  being  tremen- 
dously thick,  and  the  work  very  severe,  they  took  into  their 
plot  Christopher  Wright,  a  young  brother  of  John  Wright, 
that  they  might  have  anew  pair  of  hands  to  help.  And  Christo- 
pher Wright  fell  to  like  a  fresh  man  ;  and  they  dug  and  dug,  by 
night  and  by  day,  and  Fawkes  stood  sentinel  all  the  time.  And 
if  any  man's  heart  seemed  to  fail  him  at  all,  Fawkes  said, 
"  Gentlemen,  we  have  abundance  of  powder  and  shot  here  ; 
and  there  is  no  fear  of  our  being  taken  alive,  even  if  discovered." 
The  same  Fawkes,  who,  in  the  capacity  of  sentinel,  was  always 
prowling  about,  soon  picked  up  the  intelligence  that  the  king 
had  prorogued  the  Parliament  again,  from  the  7th  of  February, 
the  day  first  fixed  upon,  until  the  3d  of  October.  When  the 
conspirators  knew  this,  they  agreed  to  separate  until  after  the 
Christmas  holidays,  and  to  take  no  notice  of  each  other  in  the 
mean  while,  and  never  to  write  letters  to  one  another  on  any 
account.  So  the  house  at  Westminster  was  shut  up  again  ;  and 
1  suppose  the  neighbors  thought  that  those  strange-looking  men 
who  lived  there  so  gloomily,  and  went  out  so  seldom,  were  gone 
away  to  have  a  merry  Christmas  somewhere. 

It  was  the  beginning  of  February,  1605,  when  Catesby  met 
his  fellow-conspirators  again  at  this  Westminster  house.     He 


282  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

had  now  admitted  three  more, — John  Grant,  a  Warwickshire 
gentleman  of  a  melancholy  temper,  who  lived  in  a  doleful  house 
near  Stratford-upon-Avon,  with  a  frowning  wall  all  round  it,  and 
a  deep  moat ;  Robert  Winter,  eldest  brother  of  Thomas  ;  and 
Catesby's  own  servant,  Thomas  Bates,  who,  Catesby  thought, 
had  had  some  suspicion  of  what  his  master  was  about.  These 
three  had  all  suffered  more  or  less  for  their  religion  in  Eliza- 
beth's time.  And  now  they  all  began  to  dig  again  ;  and  they 
dug  and  dug,  by  night  and  by  day. 

They  found  it  dismal  work  alone  there,  under  ground,  with 
such  a  fearful  secret  on  their  minds,  and  so  many  murders  before 
them.  They  were  filled  with  wild  fancies.  Sometimes  they 
thought  they  heard  a  great  bell  tolling,  deep  down  in  the  earth 
under  the  Parliament  House ;  sometimes  they  thought  they 
heard  low  voices  muttering  about  the  Gunpowder  Plot ;  once, 
in  the  morning,  they  really  did  hear  a  great  rumbling  noise  over 
their  heads  as  they  dug  and  sweated  in  their  mine.  Every 
man  stopped,  and  looked  aghast  at  his  neighbor,  wondering 
what  happened,  when  that  bold  prowler,  Fawkes,  v/ho  had  been 
out  to  look,  came  in  and  told  them  that  it  was  only  a  dealer  in 
coals  who  had  occupied  a  cellar  under  the  Parliament  House, 
removing  his  stock  in  trade  to  some  other  place.  Upon  this 
the  conspirators,  who  with  all  their  digging  and  digging,  had 
not  yet  dug  through  the  tremendously  thick  wall,  changed  their 
plan ;  hired  that  cellar,  which  was  directly  under  the  House  of 
Lords  :  put  six-and-thirty  barrels  of  gunpowder  in  it,  and  cov- 
ered it  over  with  fagots  and  coals.  Then  they  all  dispersed 
again  till  September,  when  the  following  new  conspirators  were 
admitted  ;  Sir  Edward  Baynham  of  Gloucestershire,  Sir  Everard 
Digby  of  Rutlandshire,  Ambrose  Rookwood  of  Suffolk,  Francis 
Tresham  of  Northamptonshire.  Most  of  these  were  rich,  and 
were  to  assist  the  plot,  some  with  money,  and  some  with  horse^^ 
on  which  the  conspirators  were  to  ride  through  the  country,  and 
rouse  the  Catholics,  after  the  Parliament  should  be  blown  into 
air. 

Parliament  being  again  prorogued  from  the  3d  of  October 
to  the  5th  of  November,  and  the  conspirators  being  uneasy  les*^ 
their  design  should  have  been  found  out,  Thomas  Winter  said 
he  would  go  up  into  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  day  of  the  pro- 
rogation, and  see  how  matters  looked.  Nothing  could  be  bet- 
ter. The  unconscious  commissioners  were  walking  about  and 
talking  to  one  another,  just  over  the  six-and-thirty  barrels  of  gun- 
powder. He  came  back  and  told  the  rest  so,  and  they  went  op 
witU  their  preparations.     They  hired  a  ship,  and  kept  it  ready 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  283 

in  the  Thames,  in  which  Fawkes  was  to  sail  for  Flanders  after 
firing  with  a  slow  match  the  train  that  was  to  explode  the  pow- 
der. A  number  of  Catholic  gentlemen  not  in  the  secret  were 
invited,  on  pretence  of  a  hunting-party,  to  meet  Sir  Everard 
Digby  at  Dunchurch  on  the  fatal  day,  that  they  might  be  ready 
to  act  together.     And  now  all  was  ready. 

But  now  the  great  wickedness  and  danger,  which  had  been 
all  along  at  the  bottom  of  this  wicked  plot,  began  to  show  it- 
self. As  the  5th  of  November  drew  near,  most  of  the  conspira- 
tors, remembering  that  they  had  friends  and  relations  who 
would  be  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  day,  felt  some  natural  re- 
lenting, and  a  wish  to  v.-arn  them  to  keep  away.  They  were 
not  much  comforted  by  Catesby's  declaring,  that  in  such  a  cause, 
he  would  blow  up  his  own  son.  Lord  Monteagle,  Tresham's 
brother-in-law,  was  certain  to  be  in  the  house  ;  and  when 
Tresham  found  that  he  could  not  prevail  upon  the  rest  to  de- 
vise any  means  of  sparing  their  friends,  he  wrote  a  mysterious 
letter  to  this  lord,  and  left  it  at  his  lodging  in  the  dusk,  urging 
him  to  keep  away  from  the  opening  of  Parliament,  "  since  God 
and  man  had  concurred  to  punish  the  wickedness  of  the  times." 
It  contained  the  words,  "That  the  Parliament  should  receive  a 
terrible  blow,  and  yet  should  not  see  who  hurt  them.'*  And  it 
added,  "  The  danger  is  past,  as  soon  as  you  have  burnt  the 
letter." 

The  ministers  and  courtiers  made  out  that  his  Sowship,  by 
a  direct  miracle  from  heaven,  found  out  what  this  letter  meant. 
The  truth  is,  that  they  were  not  long  (as  few  men  would  be)  in 
finding  out  for  themselves  ;  and  it  was  decided  to  let  the  con- 
spirators alone,  until  the  very  day  before  the  opening  of  Par- 
liament. That  the  conspirators  had  their  fears  is  certain  ;  for 
Tresham  himself  said  before  them  all,  that  they  were  everyone 
dead  men  ;  and,  although  even  he  did  not  take  flight,  there  is 
reason  to  suppose  that  he  had  warned  other  persons  besides 
Lord  Monteagle.  However,  they  were  all  firm  ;  and  Fawkes, 
who  was  a  man  of  iron,  went  down  every  day  and  night  to  keep 
watch  in  the  cellar  as  usual.  He  was  there  about  two  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  4th,  when  the  lord  chamberlain  and  Lord 
Monteagle  threw  open  the  door  and  looked  in.  "  Who  are 
you,  friend  ? '  said  they.  "  Why,"  said  Fawkes,  "  I  am  Mr. 
Percy's  servant,  and  am  looking  after  his  store  of  fuel  here, 
"  Your  master  has  laid  in  a  pretty  good  store,""  they  returned, 
and  shut  the  door  and  went  away.  Fawkes,  upon  this,  posted 
off  to  the  other  conspirators  to  tell  them  all  was  quiet,  and 
went  back  and  shut  himself  up  in  the  dark  black  cellar  again, 


284  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

where  he  heard  the  bell  go  twelve  o'clock,  and  usher  in  the  5th 
of  November.  About  two  hours  afterwards,  he  slowly  opened 
the  door,  and  came  out  to  look  about  him,  in  his  old  prowling 
way.  He  was  instantly  seized  and  bound  by  a  party  of  soldiers 
under  Sir  Thomas  Knevett.  He  had  a  watch  upon  him,  some 
touchwood,  some  tinder,  some  slow-matches ;  and  there  was  a 
dark  lantern  with  a  candle  in  it,  lighted,  behind  the  door.  He 
had  his  boots  and  spurs  on, — to  ride  to  the  ship,  I  suppose  ; 
and  it  was  well  for  the  soldiers  they  took  him  so  suddenly. 
If  they  had  left  him  but  a  moment's  time  to  light  a  match,  he 
certainly  would  have  tossed  it  in  among  the  powder,  and  blown 
up  himself  and  them. 

They  took  him  to  the  king's  bedchamber  first  of  all ;  and 
there  the  king,  causing  him  to  be  held  very  tight,  and  keeping 
a  good  way  off,  asked  him  how  he  could  have  the  heart  to  in- 
tend to  destroy  so  many  innocent  people.  "  Because,"  said 
Guy  Fawkes,  "  desperate  diseases  need  desperate  remedies." 
To  a  little  Scotch  favorite,  with  a  face  like  a  terrier,  who  asked 
him,  with  no  particular  wisdom,  why  he  had  collected  so  much 
gunpowder,  he  replied,  because  he  had  meant  to  blow  Scotch- 
men back  to  Scotland,  and  it  would  take  a  deal  of  powder  to 
do  that.  Next  day  he  was  carried  to  the  Tower,  but  would 
make  no  confession,  Even  after  being  horribly  tortured,  he 
confessed  nothing  that  the  government  did  not  already  know  ; 
though  he  must  have  been  in  a  fearful  state,  as  his  signature, 
still  preserved,  in  contrast  with  his  natural  handwriting  before 
he  was  put  upon  the  dreadful  rack,  most  frightfully  shows. 
Bates,  a  very  different  man,  soon  said  the  Jesuits  had  had  to 
do  with  the  plot,  and  probably,  under  the  torture,  would  as 
readily  have  said  anything.  Tresham,  taken  and  put  in  the 
Tower  too.  made  confessions  and  unmade  them,  and  died  of  an 
illness  that  was  heavy  upon  him.  Rookwood,  who  had  sta- 
tioned relays  of  his  own  horses  all  the  way  to  Dunchurch,  did 
not  mount  to  escape  until  the  middle  of  the  day,  when  the  news 
of  the  plot  was  all  over  London.  On  the  road,  he  came  up 
with  the  two  Wrights,  Catesby,  and  Percy  ;  and  they  all  gal- 
loped together  into  Northamptonshire  ;  thence  to  Dunchurch, 
where  they  found  the  proposed  party  assembled.  Finding, 
however,  that  there  had  been  a  plot,  and  that  it  had  been  dis- 
covered, the  party  disappeared  in  the  course  of  the  night,  and 
left  them  alone  with  Sir  Everard  Digby.  Away  they  all  rode 
again,  through  Warwickshire  and  Worcestershire  to  a  house 
called  Holbeach,  on  the  borders  of  Staffordshire.  They  tried 
to  raise  the  Catholics  on  their  way,  but  were  indignantly  driven 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  285 

off  by  them.  All  this  time  they  were  hotly  pursued  by  the 
Sheriff  of  Worcester,  and  a  fast-increasing  concourse  of  riders. 
At  last,  resolving  to  defend  themselves  at  Holbeach,  they  shut 
themselves  up  in  the  house,  and  put  some  wet  powder  before 
the  fire  to  dry.  But  it  blew  up,  and  Catesby  was  singed  and 
blackened,  and  almost  killed,  and  some  of  the  others  were 
sadly  hurt.  Still,  knowing  that  they  must  die,  they  resolved  to 
die  there,  and  with  only  their  swords  in  their  hands,  appeared 
at  the  windows  to  be  shot  at  by  the  sheriff  and  his  assistants. 
Catesby  said  to  Thomas  Winter,  after  Thomas  had  been  hit  in 
the  right  arm,  which  dropped  powerless  by  his  side,  "  Stand  by 
me,  Tom,  and  we  will  die  together !  "  which  they  did,  being 
shot  through  the  body  by  two  bullets  from  one  gun.  John 
Wright  and  Christopher  Wright  and  Percy  were  also  shot. 
Rook  wood  and  Digby  were  taken  \  the  former  with  a  broken 
arm  and  a  wound  in  his  body  too. 

It  was  the  15th  of  January,  before  the  trial  of  Guy  Fawkes, 
and  such  of  the  other  conspirators  as  were  left  alive  came  on. 
They  were  all  found  guilty,  all  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered, — 
some  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  on  the  top  of  Ludgate  Hill  ; 
some  before  the  Parliament  House.  A  Jesuit  priest,  named 
Henry  Garnet,  to  whom  the  dreadful  design  was  said  to  have 
been  communicated,  was  taken  and  tried  ;  and  two  of  his  ser- 
vants, as  well  as  a  poor  priest  who  was  taken  with  him,  were 
tortured  without  mercy.  He  himself  was  not  tortured,  but  was 
surrounded  in  the  Tower  by  tamperers  and  traitors,  and  so  was 
made  unfairly  to  convict  himself  out  of  his  ovv'n  mouth.  He 
said,  upon  his  trial,  that  he  had  done  all  he  could  to  prevent 
the  deed,  and  that  he  could  not  make  public  what  had  been 
told  him  in  confession, — though  I  am  afraid  he  knew  of  the 
plot  in  other  ways.  He  was  found  guilty  and  executed,  after  a 
manful  defence,  and  the  Catholic  church  made  a  saint  of  him. 
Some  rich  and  powerful  persons,  who  had  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  project,  were  fined  and  imprisoned  for  it  by  the  Star 
Chamber ;  the  Catholics  in  general,  who  had  recoiled  with 
horror  from  the  idea  of  the  infernal  contrivance,  were  unjustly 
put  under  more  severe  laws  than  before ;  and  this  was  the  end 
of  the  Gunpowder  Plot. 

Second  Part. 

His  Sowship  would  pretty  willingly,  I  think,  have  blown 
the  House  of  Commons  into  the  air  himself ;  for  his  dread 
and  jealousy  of   it   knew  no   bounds   all   through    his    reign, 


286  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

When  he  was  hard-pressed  for  money,  he  was  obliged  to  or- 
der it  to  meet,  as  he  could  get  no  money  without  it ;  and 
when  it  asked  him  first  to  aboUsh  some  of  the  monopolies  in 
necessaries  of  life,  which  were  a  great  grievance  to  the  people, 
and  to  redress  other  public  wrongs,  he  flew  into  a  rage  and  got 
rid  of  it  again.  At  one  tune  he  wanted  it  to  consent  to  the 
union  of  England  and  Scotland,  and  quarrelled  about  that. 
At  another  time  he  wanted  it  to  put  down  a  most  infamous 
Church  abuse,  called  the  High  Commission  Court  j  and  he 
quarrelled  with  it  about  that.  At  another  time  it  entreated 
him  not  to  be  quite  so  fond  of  his  archbishops  and  bishops, 
who  made  speeches  in  his  praise  too  awful  to  be  related,  but  to 
have  some  little  consideration  for  the  poor  Puritan  clergy,  who 
v/ere  persecuted  for  preaching  in  their  own  way,  and  not  ac- 
cording to  the  archbishops  and  bishops  ;  and  they  quarrelled 
about  that.  In  short,  what  with  hating  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  pretending  not  to  hate  it  ;  and  what  with  now  sending  some 
of  its  members  who  opposed  him  to  Newgate  or  to  the  Tower, 
and  now  telling  the  rest  that  they  must  not  presume  to  make 
speeches  about  the  public  affairs  which  could  not  possibly  con- 
cern them  ;  and  what  with  cajoling  and  bullying,  and  frighten- 
ing and  being  frightened, — the  House  of  Commons  was  the 
plague  of  his  Sow^ship's  existence.  It  was  pretty  firm,  however, 
in  maintaining  its  rights,  and  insisting  that  the  Parliament 
should  make  the  laws,  and  not  the  king  by  his  own  single  proc- 
lamation (which  he  tried  hard  to  do)  ;  and  his  Sowship  was  so 
often  distressed  for  money,  in  consequence,  that  he  sold  every 
sort  of  title  and  public  office  as  if  they  were  merchandise,  and 
even  invented  a  new  dignity  called  a  baronetcy,  which  anybody 
could  buy  for  a  thousand  pounds.  These  disputes  with  his 
parliaments,  and  his  hunting,  and  his  drinking,  and  his  laying 
in  bed, — for  he  was  a  great  sluggard, — occupied  his  Sowship 
pretty  well.  The  rest  of  his  time  he  chiefly  passed  in  hugging 
and  slobbering  his  favorites.  The  first  of  these  was  Sir  Philip 
Herbert,  who  had  no  knowledge  whatever,  except  of  dogs  and 
horses  and  hunting,  but  vvhom  he  soon  made  Earl  of  Mont- 
gomery. The  next,  and  a  m.uch  more  famous  one,  was  Robert 
Carr,  or  Ker  (for  it  is  not  certain  which  is  his  right  name),  who 
came  from  the  Border  country,  and  whom  he  soon  made  Vis- 
count Rochester,  and  afterwards  Earl  of  Somerset.  The  way 
in  which  his  Sowship  doted  on  this  handsome  young  man  is 
even  more  odious  to  think  of  than  the  way  in  which  the  great 
\nen  of  England  condescended  to  bow  down  before  him.  The 
favorite's  greai  friend  was  a  certain  Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  who 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST,  287 

wrote  his  love-letters  for  him,  and  assisted  him  in  the  duties  of 
his  many  high  places,  which  his  own  ignorance  prevented  him 
from  discharging.  But  this  same  Sir  Thomas  having  just  man- 
hood enough  to  dissuade  the  favorite  from  a  wicked  marriage 
with  the  beautiful  Countess  of  Essex,  who  was  to  get  a  divorce 
from  her  husband  for  the  purpose,  the  said  countess,  in  her 
rage,  got  Sir  Thomas  put  into  the  Tower,  and  there  poisoned 
him.  Then  the  favorite  and  this  bad  woman  were  publicly 
married  by  the  king's  pet  bishop,  with  as  much  to-do  and  re- 
joicing as  if  he  had  been  the  best  man,  and  she  the  best  woman 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth. 

But  after  a  longer  sunshine  than  might  have  been  expected, 
' — of  seven  years  or  so,  that  is  to  say, — another  handsome 
young  man  started  up,  and  eclipsed  the  Earl  of  Somerset. 
This  was  George  Villiers,  the  youngest  son  of  a  Leicestershire 
gentleman  ;  who  came  to  court  with  all  the  Paris  fashions  on 
him,  and  could  dance  as  well  as  the  best  mountebank  that  ever 
was  seen.  He  soon  danced  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  his 
Sovvship,  and  danced  the  other  favorite  out  of  favor.  Then  it 
was  all  at  once  discovered  that  the  Earl  and  Countess  of 
Somerset  had  not  deserved  all  these  great  promotions  and 
mighty  rejoicings  ;  and  they  were  separately  tried  for  the  mur- 
der of  Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  and  for  other  crimes.  But  the 
king  was  so  afraid  of  his  late  favorite's  publicly  telling  some 
of  the  disgraceful  things  he  knew  of  him, — which  he  darkly 
threatened  to  do, — that  he  was  even  examined  with  two  men 
standing,  one  on  either  side  of  him,  each  with  a  cloak  in  his 
hand,  ready  to  throw  it  over  his  head  and  stop  his  mouth,  if  he 
should  break  out  with  what  he  had  in  his  power  to  tell.  So 
a  very  lame  affair  was  purposely  made  of  the  trial  \  and  his 
punishment  was  an  allowance  of  four  thousand  pounds  a  year 
in  retirement,  while  the  countess  was  pardoned,  and  allowed  to 
pass  into  retirement  too.  They  hated  one  another  by  this  time, 
and  lived  to  revile  and  torment  each  other  some  years. 

While  these  events  were  in  progress,  and  while  his  Sowship 
was  making  such  an  exhibition  of  himself,  from  day  to  day  and 
from  year  to  year,  as  is  not  often  seen  in  any  sty,  three  remark- 
able deaths  took  place  in  England.  The  first  was  that  of  the 
minister,  Robert  Cecil,  Earl  of  Salisbury,  who  was  past  sixt}', 
and  had  never  been  strong,  being  deformed  from  his  birth.  He 
said  dt  last  that  he  had  no  wish  lo  live  ;  and  no  minister  need 
have  had,  with  his  experience  of  the  meanness  and  wickedness 
of  those  disgraceful  times.  The  second  was  that  of  the  Lady 
Arabella  Stuart,  who  alarmed  his  Sowship  mightily  by  privatel^" 


288  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

marrying  William  Seymour,  son  of  Lord  Beauchamp,  who  was 
a  descendant  of  King  Henry  the  Seventh,  and  who,  his  Sow- 
ship  thought,  might  consequently  increase  and  strengthen  any 
claim  she  might  one  day  set  up  to  the  throne.  She  was 
separated  from  her  husband  (who  was  put  in  the  Tower)  and 
thrust  into  a  boat  to  be  confined  at  Durham.  She  escaped  in 
a  man's  dress  to  get  away  in  a  French  ship  from  Gravesend  to 
France,  but  unhappily  missed  her  husband,  who  had  escaped 
too,  and  was  soon  taken.  She  went  raving  mad  in  the  miser- 
able Tower,  and  died  there  after  four  years.  The  last,  and  the 
most  important,  of  these  three  deaths,  was  that  of  Prince 
Henry,  the  heir  to  the  throne,  in  the  nineteenth  year  of  his  age. 
He  was  a  promising  young  prince,  and  greatly  liked, — a  quiet 
well-conducted  youth,  of  whom  two  very  good  things  are  known 
first,  that  his  father  was  jealous  of  him  ;  secondly,  that  he  was 
the  friend  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  languishing  through  all  those 
years  in  the  Tower,  and  often  said  that  no  man  but  his  father 
would  keep  such  a  bird  in  such  a  cage.  On  the  occasion  of 
the  preparations  for  the  marriage  of  his  sister,  the  Princess 
Elizabeth,  with  a  foreign  prince  (and  an  unhappy  marriage  it 
turned  out),  he  came  from  Richmond,  where  he  had  been  very 
ill,  to  greet  his  new  brother-in-law,  at  the  palace  at  Whitehall. 
There  he  played  a  great  game  at  tennis,  in  his  shirt,  though  it 
was  very  cold  weather,  and  was  seized  with  an  alarming  illness 
and  died  within  a  fortnight  of  a  putrid  fever.  For  this  young 
prince  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  wrote,  in  his  prison  in  the  Tower, 
the  beginning  of  a  History  of  the  World  ;  a  wonderful  instance 
how  little  his  Sowship  could  do  to  confine  a  great  man's  mind, 
however  long  he  might  imprison  his  body. 

At  this  mention  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  who  had  many  faults, 
but  who  never  showed  so  many  merits  as  in  trouble  and  adver- 
sity, may  bring  me  at  once  to  the  end  of  his  sad  story.  After 
an  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  for  twelve  long  years,  he  pro- 
posed to  resume  those  old  sea  voyages  of  his,  and  to  go  to 
South  America  in  search  of  gold.  His  Sowship,  divided  be- 
tween a  wish  to  be  on  good  terms  with  the  Spaniards,  through 
whose  territory  Sir  Walter  must  pass  (he  had  long  had  an  idea  of 
marrying  Prince  Henry  to  a  Spanish  princess),  and  his  avaricious 
eagerness  to  get  hold  of  the  gold,  did  not  know  what  to  do- 
But  in  the  end  he  set  Sir  Walter  free,  taking  securities  for  his 
return  ;  and  Sir  Walter  fitted  out  an  expedition  at  his  own  cost, 
and  on  the  28th  of  March,  16 17,  sailed  away  in  command  of 
one  of  its  ships,  which  he  ominously  called  the  Destiny.  The  ex- 
pedition failed  J  the  common  men,  not  finding  the  gold  they 


EN-GLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST  289 

had  expected,  mutinied ;  a  quarrel  broke  out  between  Sir 
Walter  and  the  Spaniards,  who  hated  him  for  old  successes  of 
his  against  them  ;  and  he  took  and  burnt  a  little  town  called 
St.  Thomas.  For  this  he  was  denounced  to  his  Sowship  by  the 
Spanish  ambassador  as  a  pirate ;  and  returning  almost  broken- 
hearted, with  all  his  hopes  and  fortunes  shattered,  his  company 
of  friends  dispersed,  and  his  brave  son  (who  had  been  one  of 
them)  killed,  he  was  taken, — through  the  treachery  of  Sir  Lewis 
Stukely,  his  near  relation,  a  scoundrel  and  a  vice-admiral, — and 
was  once  again  immured  in  his  prison  home  of  so  many  years. 
His  Sowship  being  mightily  disappointed  in  not  getting  any 
gold,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  tried  as  unfairly,  and  with  as 
many  lies  and  evasions,  as  the  judges  and  law-officers  and 
every  other  authority  in  church  and  state  habitually  prac- 
tised under  such  a  king.  After  a  great  deal  of  prevarication 
on  all  parts  but  his  own,  it  was  declared  that  he  must  die 
under  his  former  sentence,  now  fifteen  years  old.  So,  on  the 
i8th  of  October,  1618,  he  was  shut  up  in  the  Gate  House  at 
Westminster  to  pass  his  last  night  on  earth  ;  and  there  took 
lea/e  of  his  good  and  faithful  lady,  who  was  worthy  to  have 
lived  in  better  days.  At  eight  o'clock  next  morning,  after  a 
cheerful  breakfast,  and  a  pipe,  and  a  cup  of  good  wine,  he  was 
taken  to  Old  Palace  Yar'd,  in  Westminster,  where  the  scaffold 
was  set  up,  and  where  so  many  people  of  high  degree  were  as- 
sembled to  see  him  die,  that  it  was  a  matter  of  some  difficulty 
to  get  him  through  the  crowd.  He  behaved  most  nobly ;  but, 
if  anything  lay  heavy  on  his  mind,  it  was  that  Earl  of  Essex, 
whose  head  he  had  seen  roll  off  ;  and  he  solemnly  said  that  he 
had  had  no  hand  in  bringing  him  to  the  block,  and  that  he  had 
shed  tears  for  him  when  he  died.  As  the  morning  was  very 
cold  the  sheriff  said,  Would  he  come  down  to  a  fire  for  a 
little  space,  and  warm  himself  ?  But  Sir  Walter  thanked 
him,  and  said,  No  ;  he  would  rather  it  were  done  at  once  ;  for 
he  was  ill  of  fever  and  ague,  and  in  another  quarter  of  an  hour 
his  shaking  fit  would  come  upon  him  if  he  were  still  alive,  and 
his  enemies  might  then  suppose  that  he  trembled  for  fear. 
\\'ith  that  he  kneeled,  and  made  a  very  beautiful  and  Christian 
prayer.  Before  he  laid  his  head  upon  the  block  he  felt  the 
ecli^e  of  the  axe,  and  said,  with  a  smile  upon  his  face,  that  it 
was  a  sharp  medicine,  but  would  cure  the  worst  disease. 
Vv^hen  he  was  bent  down,  ready  for  death,  he  said  to  the  ex- 
ecutioner, finding  that  he  hesitated,  *'What  dost  thou  fear,'* 
S:rikG,  man  !  "  So  the  axe  came  down,  and  struck  his  head 
lii,  in  the  sixty-sixth  year  of  b^-^  age. 


ago  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

The  new  favorite  got  on  fast.  He  was  made  a  viscount,  he 
was  made  Duke  of  Buckingham,  he  was  made  a  marquis,  he  was 
made  master  of  the  horse,  he  was  made  lord  high  admiral ; 
and  the  chief  commander  of  the  gallant  English  forces  that 
had  dispersed  the  Spanish  Armada  was  displaced  to  make 
room  for  him.  He  had  the  whole  kingdom  at  his  disposal ; 
and  his  mother  sold  all  the  profits  and  honors  of  the  state,  aS 
if  she  had  kept  a  shop.  He  blazed  all  over  with  diamonds 
and  other  precious  stones,  from  his  hatband  and  his  ear-rings 
to  his  shoes.  Yet  he  was  an  ignorant,  presumptuous,  swagger- 
ing compound  of  knave  and  fool,  with  nothing  but  his  beauty 
and  his  dancing  to  recommend  him.  This  is  the  gerttleman 
who  calle  1  himself  his  Majesty's  dog  and  slave,  and  called 
his  Majesty,  Your  Sowship.  His  Sowship  called  him  Steenie  ; 
it  is  supposed  because  that  was  a  nickname  for  Stephen,  and 
because  St.  Stephen  was  generally  represented  in  pictures  as  a 
handsome  saint. 

His  Sowship  was  driven  sometimes  to  his  wits'  end  by  his 
trimming  between  the  general  dislike  of  the  Catholic  religion 
at  home,  and  his  desire  to  wheedle  and  flatter  it  abroad,  as  his 
only  means  of  getting  a  rich  princess  for  his  son's  wife,  a  part 
of  whose  fortune  he  might  cram  into  his  greasy  pockets. 
Prince  Charles — or,  as  his  Sowship  called  him.  Baby  Charles — 
being  now  Prince  of  Wales,  the  old  project  of  a  marriage  with 
the  Spanish  king's  daughter  had  been  revived  for  him  ;  and  as 
she  could  not  marry  a  Protestant  without  leave  from  the  pope, 
his  Sowship  himself  secretly  and  meanly  wrote  to  his  Infalli- 
bility, asking  for  it.  The  negotiation  for  this  Spanish  marriage 
takes  up  a  larger  space  in  great  books  than  you  can  imagine  ; 
but  the  upshot  of  all  is,  that,  when  it  had  been  held  off  by  the 
Spanish  court  for  a  long  time.  Baby  Charles  and  Steenie  set  off 
in  disguise  as  Mr.  Thomas  Smith  and  Mr.  John  Smith,  to  see 
the  Spanish  princess  ;  that  Baby  Charles  pretended  to  be  des- 
perately in  love  with  her,  and  jumped  off  walls  to  look  at  her, 
and  made  a  considerable  fool  of  himself  in  a  good  many  ways ; 
that  she  was  called  Princess  of  Wales,  and  that  the  whole 
Spanish  court  believed  Baby  Charles  to  be  all  but  dying  for 
her  sake,  as  he  expressly  told  them  he  was ;  that  Baby 
Charles  and  Steenie  came  back  to  England,  and  were  received 
with  as  much  rapture  as  if  they  had  been  a  blessing  to  it ;  that 
Baby  Charles  had  actually  fallen  in  love  with  Henrietta  Maria, 
the  French  king's  sister,  whom  he  had  seen  in  Paris  ;  that  he 
thought  it  a  wonderfully  fine  and  princely  thing  to  have  de- 
ceived the  Spaniards  all  through  ^  and  that  he  openly  said  with 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  29 1 

a  chuckle,  as  soon  as  he  was  safe  and  sound  at  home  again, 
that  the  Spaniards  were  great  fools  to  have  believed  him. 

Like  most  dishonest  men,  the  prince  and  the  favorite  com- 
plained that  the  people  whom  they  had  deluded  were  dis- 
honest. They  made  such  misrepresentations  of  the  treachery 
of  the  Spaniards,  in  this  business  of  the  Spanish  match,  that 
the  English  nation  became  eager  for  a  war  with  them.  Al- 
though the  gravest  Spaniards  laughed  at  the  idea  of  his  Sow- 
sliip  in  a  warlike  attitude,  the  Parliament  granted  money  for 
the  beginning  of  hostilities,  and  the  treaties  with  Spain  were 
publicly  declared  to  be  at  an  end.  The  Spanish  ambassador  in 
London, — probably  with  the  help  of  the  fallen  favorite,  the  Earl 
of  Somerset, — being  unable  to  obtain  speech  with  his  Sowship, 
slipped  a  paper  into  his  ha»d,  declaring  that  he  was  a  prisoner 
in  his  own  house,  and  was  entirely  governed  by  Buckingham  and 
his  creatures.  The  first  effect  of  this  letter  was,  that  his  Sowship 
began  to  cry  and  whine,  and  took  Baby  Charles  away  from 
Steenie,  and  went  down  to  Windsor,  gabbling  all  sorts  of  non- 
sense. The  end  of  it  was  that  his  Sowship  hugged  his  dog 
and  slave,  and  said  he  was  quite  satisfied. 

He  had  given  the  prince  and  the  favorite  almost  unlimited 
power  to  settle  anything  with  the  pope  as  to  the  Spanish  mar- 
riage ;  and  he  now,  with  a  view  to  the  French  one,  signed  a 
treaty  that  all  Roman  Catholics  in  England  should  exercise 
their  religion  freely,  and  should  never  be  required  to  take  any 
oath  contrary  thereto.  In  return  for  this,  and  for  other  con- 
cessions much  less  to  be  defended,  Henrietta  Maria  was  to 
become  the  Prince's  wife,  and  was  to  bring  him  a  fortune  of 
eight  hundred  thousand  crowns. 

His  Sowship's  eyes  were  getting  red  with  eagerly  looking 
for  the  money,  when  the  end  of  a  gluttonous  life  came  upon 
him  ;  and,  after  a  fortnight's  illness,  on  Sunday,  the  27th  of 
March,  1625,  he  died.  He  had  reigned  twenty-two  years,  and 
was  fifty-nine  years  old.  I  know  of  nothing  more  abominable 
in  history  than  the  adulation  that  was  lavished  on  this  king, 
and  the  vice  and  corruption  that  such  a  barefaced  habit 
of  lying  produced  in  his  court.  It  is  much  to  be  doubted 
whether  one  man  of  honor,  and  not  utterly  self-disgraced,  kept 
his  place  near  James  the  First.  Lord  Bacon,  that  able  and 
wise  philosopher,  as  the  first  judge  in  the  kingdom  in  this  reign, 
became  a  public  spectacle  of  dishonesty  and  corruption  ;  and 
in  his  base  flattery  of  his  Sowship,  and  in  his  crawling  servility 
to  his  dog  and  slave,  disgraced  himself  even  more.  But  a  crea- 
ture like  hi;»  Sowship  set  upon  a  throne  is  like  a  plague,  and 
everybody  icceiv&»  icifectj^n  froiii  hinL 


2Q2  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

CHAPTER  XXXIIL 

ENGLAND   UNDER   CHARLES   THE   FIRST. 

Baby  Charles  became  King  Charles  the  First  in  the 
twenty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  Unlike  his  father,  he  was  usually 
amiable  in  his  private  character,  and  grave  and  dignified  in  his 
bearing ;  but,  like  his  father,  he  had  monstrously  exaggerated 
notions  of  the  rights  of  a  king,  and  was  ^vasive,  and  not  to  be 
trusted.  If  his  word  could  have  been  relied  upon,  his  history 
might  have  had  a  different  end. 

His  first  care  was  to  send  over  that  insolent  upstart, 
Buckingham,  to  bring  Henrietta  Maria  from  Paris  to  be  his 
queen  ;  upon  which  occasion,  Buckingham,  with  his  usual 
audacity,  made  love  to  the  young  Queen  of  Austria,  and  was 
very  indignant  indeed  with  Cardinal  Richelieu,  the  French 
minister,  for  thwarting  his  intentions.  The  English  people 
were  very  well  disposed  to  like  their  new  queen,  and  to  receive 
her  with  great  favor  when  she  came  among  them  as  a  stranger. 
But  she  held  the  Protestant  religion  in  great  dislike,  and 
brought  over  a  crowd  of  unpleasant  priests,  who  made  her  do 
some  very  ridiculous  things,  and  forced  themselves  upon  the 
public  notice  in  many  disagreeable  ways.  Hence  the  people  soon 
came  to  dislike  her,  and  she  soon  came  to  dislike  them  ;  and 
she  did  so  much  all  through  this  reign  in  setting  the  king,  who 
was  dotingly  fond  of  her,  against  his  subjects,  that  it  would  have 
been  better  for  him  if  she  had  never  been  born. 

Now  you  are  to  understand  that  King  Charles  the  First,  of 
his  own  determination  to  be  a  high  and  mighty  king,  not  to  be 
called  to  account  by  anybody,  and  urged  on  by  his  queen  be- 
sides, deliberately  set  himself  to  put  his  parliament  down  and 
to  put  himself  up.  You  are  also  to  understand,  that,  even  in 
pursuit  of  this  wrong  idea  (enough  in  itself  to  have  ruined  any 
king),  he  never  took  a  straight  course,  but  always  a  crooked 
one. 

He  was  bent  upon  war  with  Spain,  though  neither  the  House 
of  Commons  nor  the  people  were  quite  clear  as  to  the  justice  of 
that  war,  now  that  they  began  to  think  a  little  more  about  the 
story  of  the  Spanish  match.  But  the  king  rushed  into  it  hotly, 
raised  money  by  illegal  means  to  meet  its  expenses,  and  en- 
countered a  miserable  failure  at  Cadiz,  in   the  very  first  yea/ 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 


293 


of  his  reign,  An  expedition  to  Cadiz  had  been  made  in  the 
hope  of  plunder  ;  but,  as  it  was  not  successful,  it  was  necessary 
to  get  a  grant  of  money  from  the  Parliament  ;  and  when  they 
met  in  no  very  complying  humor,  the  king  told  them,  *'  to  make 
haste  to  let  him  have  it,  or  it  would  be  the  worse  for  themseh'es." 
Not  put  in  a  more  complying  humor  by  this,  they  impeached  the 
king's  favorite,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  as  the  cause — which 
he  undoubtedly  was  —  of  many  great  public  grievances  and 
wrongs.  The  king,  to  save  him,  dissolved  the  Parliament  with- 
out getting  the  money  he  wanted  ;  and  when  the  lords  implored 
him  to  consider  and  grant  a  little  delay,  he  replied,  "  No,  not 
one  minute.  He  then  began  to  raise  money  for  himself  by  the 
following  means  among  others. 

He  levied  certain  duties,  called  tonnage  and  poundage, 
which  had  not  been  granted  by  the  Parliament,  and  could  law- 
fullv  be  levied  by  no  other  power  ;  he  called  upon  the  seaport 
towns  to  furnish,  and  to  pay  all  the  cost  for  three  months  of  a 
ficet  of  armed  ships  ;  and  he  required  the  people  to  unite  in 
lending  him  large  sums  of  money,  the  repayment  of  which  was 
very  doubtful.  If  the  poor  people  refused,  they  were  pressed 
as  soldiers  or  sailors ;  if  the  gentry  refused,  they  were  sent  to 
prison.  Five  gentlemen,  named  Sir  Thomas  Darnel,  John 
Corbet,  Walter  Earl,  John  Heveningham,  and  Everard  Hamp- 
den, for  refusing,  were  taken  up  by  a  warrant  of  the  king's  privy 
council,  and  were  sent  to  prison  without  any  cause  but  the  king's 
pleasure  being  stated  for  their  imprisonment.  Then  the  ques- 
tion came  to  be  solemnly  tried  whether  this  was  not  a  violation 
of  Magna  Charta,  and  an  encroachment  by  the  king  on  the 
highest  rights  of  the  English  people.  His  lawyers  contended. 
No  ;  because  to  encroach  upon  the  rights  of  the  English  people 
would  be  to  do  wrong,  and  the  king  could  do  no  wrong.  The 
accommodating  judges  decided  in  favor  of  this  wicked  nonsense  ; 
and  here  was  a  fatal  division  between  the  king  and  the  people. 

r'or  all  this  it  became  necessary  to  call  another  parliament. 
The  people,  sensible  of  the  dangers  in  which  their  liberties  were, 
chose  for  it  those  who  were  best  known  for  their  determined 
opposition  to  the  king  ;  but  still  the  king,  quite  blinded  by  hi;s 
determination  to  carry  everything  before  him,  addressed  them, 
when  they  met,  in  a  contemptuous  manner,  and  just  told  them 
in  so  many  words  that  he  had  only  called  them  together  because 
he  wanted  money.  The  Parliament,  strong  enough  and  resolute 
enough  to  know  that  they  would  lower  his  tone,  cared  little  for 
what  he  said,  and  laid  before  him  one  of  the  great  documents  of 
history,  which  is  called  the  Petition  of  Right,  requiring  that  the 


294 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


free  men  of  England  should  no  longer  be  called  iiDon  to  lend 
the  king  money,  and  should  no  longer  be  pressed  or  imprisoned 
for  refusing  to  do  so ;  further,  that  the  free  men  of  England 
should  no  longer  be  seized  by  the  king's  special  mandate  or 
warrant,  it  being  contrary  to  their  rights  and  liberties,  and  the 
laws  of  their  country.  At  first,  the  king  returned  an  answer  to 
this  petition,  in  which  he  tried  to  shirk  it  altogether;  but  the 
House  of  Commons  then  showing  their  determination  to  go  on 
with  the  impeachment  of  Buckingham,  the  king,  in  alarm, 
returned  an  answer,  giving  his  consent  to  all  that  was  required 
of  him.  He  not  only  afterwards  departed  from  his  word  and 
lionor  on  these  points,  over  and  over  again,  but  at  this  very 
tjii.e,  he  did  the  mean  and  dissembling  act  of  publishing  his  :5rst 
aiicswer  and  not  his  second,  merely  that  the  people  might  sup- 
pose that  the  Parliament  had  not  got  the  better  of  him. 

That  pestilent  Buckingham,  to  gratify  his  own  wounded 
vanity,  had,  by  this  time,  involved  the  country  in  war  with 
France,  as  well  as  with  Spain,  For  such  miserable  causes  and 
such  miserable  creatures  are  wars  sometimes  made.  But  he 
was  destined  to  do  little  more  mischief  in  this  world.  One 
morning,  as  he  was  going  out  of  his  house  to  his  carriage,  he 
turned  to  speak  to  a  certain  Colonel  Fryer  who  was  with  him ; 
and  he  was  violently  stabbed  with  a  knife,  which  the  murderer 
left  sticking  in  his  heart.  This  happened  in  his  hall.  He  had 
angry  words  up  stairs,  just  before,  with  some  French  gentlemen, 
who  were  immediately  suspected  by  his  servants,  and  had  a 
close  escape  from  being  set  upon  and  killed.  In  the  midst  of 
the  noise,  the  real  murderer,  who  had  gone  to  the  kitchen  and 
might  easily  have  got  away,  drew  his  sword,  and  cried  out,  "  I 
am  the  man  !  "  His  name  was  John  Felton,  a  Protestant,  and 
a  retired  officer  in  the  army.  He  said  he  had  no  personal  ill- 
will  to  the  duke,  but  had  killed  him  as  a  curse  to  the  country. 
He  had  aimed  his  blow  well  ;  for  Buckingham  had  only  had 
time  to  cry  out,  "  Villain  !  "  and  then  he  drew  out  the  knife,  fell 
against  a  table,  and  died. 

The  council  made  a  mighty  business  of  examining  John 
Felton  about  this  murder,  though  it  was  a  plain  case  enough,  one 
would  think.  He  had  come  seventy  miles  to  do  it,  he  told  them, 
and  he  did  it  for  the  reason  he  had  declared  :  if  they  put  him 
upon  the  rack,  as  that  noble  Marquis  of  Dorset,  whom  he  saw 
before  him,  had  the  goodness  to  threaten,  he  gave  that  mar- 
quis warning  that  be  would  accuse  him  as  his  accomplice.  The 
king  was  unpleasantly  anxious  to  have  him  racked,  nevertheless ; 
but  as  the  judges  now  found  out  that  torture  was  contrary  to 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 


295 


the  law  of  England, — it  is  a  pity  they  did  not  make  the  dis- 
covery a  httle  sooner, — John  Felton  was  simply  executed  for  the 
murder  he  had  done.  A  murder  it  undoubtedly  was,  and  not 
in  the  least  to  be  defended,  though  he  had  freed  England  from 
one  of  the  most  profligate,  contemptible,  and  base  court  favorites 

Cwhom  it  has  ever  yielded. 
A  very  different  man  now  arose.  This  was  Sir  Thomas 
entworth,  a  Yorkshire  gentleman,  who  had  sat  in  parlia- 
Kment  for  a  long  time,  and  who  had  favored  arbitrary  and 
lihaughty  principles,  but  who  had  gone  over  to  th-e  people's  side 
lion  receiving  offence  from  Buckingham.  The  king,  much  want- 
jiing  such  a  man, — for  besides  being  naturally  favorable  to  the 
liking's  cause,  he  had  great  abilities, — made  him  first  a  baron, 
(•and  then  a  viscount,  and  gave  him  high  employment,  and  won 
I  him  most  completely. 

Ij  A  parliament,  however,  was  still  in  existence,  and  was  not 
'to  be  won.  Oa  the  20Lh  of  January,  1629,  Sir  John  Eliot,  a 
great  man  who  had  been  active  in  the  Petition  of  Right, 
brought  forward  other  strong  resolutions  against  the  king's 
chief  instruments,  and  called  upon  the  speaker  to  put  them  to 
the  vote.  To  this  the  speaker  answered,  "  He  was  commanded 
otherwise  by  the  king,"  and  got  up  to  leave  the  chair,  which, 
according  to  the  rules  of  the  House  of  Commons,  would  have 
obliged  it  to  adjourn  without  r.oing  anything  more,  when  two 
members,  named  Mr.  HoUis  and  Mr.  Valentine,  held  him  down. 
A  scene  of  great  confusion  arose  among  the  members  ;  and 
while  many  swords  were  drawn  and  flashing  about,  the  king, 
who  was  kept  informed  of  all  that  was  going  on,  told  the  cap- 
tain of  his  guard  to  go  down  to  the  House  and  force  the  doors. 
The  resolutions  were  by  that  time,  however,  voted,  and  the 
House  adjourned.  Sir  John  Eliot,  and  those  two  members  who 
had  held  the  speaker  down,  were  quickly  summoned  before  the 
.council.  As  they  claimed  it  to  be  their  privilege  not  to  an- 
swer out  of  parliament  for  anything  they  had  said  in  it,  they 
were  committed  to  the  Tower.  The  king  then  went  down  and 
dissolved  the  parliament,  in  a  speech  wherein  he  made  mention 
of  these  gentlemen  as  "Vipers,"  which  did  not  do  him  much 
good  that  ever  I  heard  of. 

As  they  refused  to  gain  their  liberty  by  saying  they  were 
sorry  for  what  they  had  done,  the  king,  always  remarkably  un- 
forgiving, never  overlooked  their  offence.  When  they  de- 
manded to  be  brought  up  before  the  court  of  king's  bench,  he 
even  resorted  to  the  meanness  of  havin2:  them  moved  about 
from  prison  to  prison,  so  that  the  writs  issued  for  that  purpose 


296  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

should  not  legally  find  them.  At  last  they  came  before  the 
court,  and  were  sentenced  to  heavy  fines,  and  to  be  imprisoned 
during  the  king's  pleasure.  When  Sir  John  Eliot's  health  h/id 
quite  given  away,  and  he  so  longed  for  change  of  air  and  scene 
as  to  petition  for  his  release,  the  king  sent  back  the  answer 
(worthy  of  his  Sowship  himself)  that  the  petition  was  not  humble 
enough.  When  he  sent  another  petition  by  his  young  son,  in 
which  he  pathetically  offered  to  go  back  to  prison  when  his 
health  was  restored,  if  he  might  be  released  for  its  recovery, 
the  king  still  disregarded  it.  When  he  died  in  the  Tower,  and 
his  children  petitioned  to  be  allowed  to  take  his  body  down  to 
Cornwall,  there  to  lay  it  among  the  ashes  of  his  forefathers, 
the  king  returned  for  answer,  "  Let  Sir  John  Eliot's  body  be 
buried  in  the  church  of  that  parish  where  he  died."  All  this 
was  like  a  very  little  king  indeed,  I  think. 

And  now  for  twelve  long  years,  steadily  pursuing  his  de- 
sign of  setting  himself  up  and  putting  the  people  down,  the 
king  called  no  parliament,  but  ruled  without  one.  If  twelve 
thousand  volumes  were  written  in  his  praise  (as  a  good  many 
have  been),  it  would  still  remain  a  fact,  impossible  to  be  de- 
nied, that  for  twelve  years  King  Charles  the  First  reigned  in 
England  unlawfully  and  despotically,  seized  upon  his  subjects' 
goods  and  money  at  his  pleasure,  and  punished,  according  to 
his  unbridled  will,  all  who  ventured  to  oppose  him.  It  is  a 
fashion  with  some  people  to  think  that  this  king's  career  was 
cut  short ;  but  I  must  say  myself  that  I  think  he  ran  a  pretty 
long  one. 

William  Laud,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  was  the  king's 
right-hand  man  in  the  religious  part  of  the  putting  down  of  the 
people's  liberties.  Laud,  who  was  a  sincere  man,  of  large 
learning  but  small  sense, — for  the  two  things  sometimes  go  to- 
gether in  very  different  quantities, — though  a  Protestant,  held 
opinions  so  near  those  of  the  Catholics  that  the  pope  wanted 
\o  make  a  cardinal  of  him,  if  he  would  have  accepted  that 
favor.  He  looked  upon  vows,  robes,  lighted  candles,  images, 
&c.,  as  amazingly  important  in  religious  ceremonies;  and  he 
brought  in  an  immensity  of  bowing  and  candle-snuffing.  He 
also  regarded  archbishops  and  bishops  as  a  sort  of  miraculous 
persons,  and  was  inveterate  in  the  last  degree  against  any  who 
thought  otherwise.  Accordingly,  he  offered  up  thanks  to 
Heaven,  and  was  in  a  state  of  much  pious  pleasure,  when  a 
Scotch  clergyman,  named  Leighton,  was  pilloried,  whipped, 
branded  in  the  cheek,  and  had  one  of  his  ears  cut  off,  and 
one  of  his  nostrils  slit,  for  calling  bishops  trumpery  and  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST,  297 

inventions  of  men.  He  originated  on  a  Sunday  morning  the 
prosecution  of  William  Pryne,  a  barrister  who  was  of  similar 
opinions,  and  who  was  fined  a  thousand  pounds,  who  was  pil- 
loried, who  had  his  ears  cut  off  on  two  occasions, — one  ear  at 
a  time, — and  who  was  imprisoned  for  life.  He  highly  approved 
of  the  punishment  of  Dr.  Bastwick,  a  physician,  who  was  also 
fined  a  thousand  pounds,  and  who  afterwards  had  his  ears 
cut  off,  and  was  imprisoned  for  life.  These  were  gentle  meth- 
ods of  persuasion,  some  will  tell  you  ;  I  think  they  were  rather 
calculated  to  be  alarming  to  the  people. 

In  the  money  part  of  the  putting  down  of  the  people's  lib- 
erties, the  king  was  equally  gentle,  as  some  will  tell  you ;  as  I 
think,  equally  alarming.  He  levied  those  duties  of  tonnage 
and  poundage,  and  increased  them  as  he  thought  fit.  He 
granted  monopolies  to  companies  of  merchants  on  their  paying 
him  for  them^  notwithstanding  the  great  complaints  that  had,  for 
years  and  years,  been  made  on  the  subject  of  monopolies.  He 
fined  the  people  for  disobeying  proclamations  issued  by  his 
Sowship  in  direct  violation  of  law.  He  revived  the  detested 
forest-laws,  and  took  private  property  to  himself  as  his  forest 
right.  Above  all,  he  determined  to  have  what  was  called  ship- 
money  ;  that  is  to  say,  money  for  the  support  of  the  fleet,  not 
only  from  the  seaports,  but  from  all  the  counties  of  England, 
having  found  out  that  in  some  ancient  time  or  other,  all  the 
counties  paid  it.  The  grievance  of  this  ship-money  being 
somewhat  too  strong,  John  Chambers,  a  citizen  of  London,  re- 
fused to  pay  his  part  of  it.  For  this,  the  lord  mayor  ordered 
John  Chambers  to  prison,  and  for  that,  John  Chambers  brought 
a  suit  against  the  lord  mayor.  Lord  Say  also  behaved  like  a 
real  nobleman,  and  declared  he  would  not  pay.  But  the  stur- 
diest and  best  opponent  of  the  ship-money  was  John  Hamp- 
den, a  gentleman  of  Buckinghamshire,  who  had  sat  among  the 
"vipers"  in  the  House  of  Commons,  when  there  was  such  a 
thing,  and  who  had  been  the  bosom  friend  of  Sir  John  Eliot. 
This  case  was  tried  before  the  twelve  judges  in  the  Court  of 
Exchequer,  and  again  the  king's  lawyers  said  it  was  impossible 
that  ship-money  could  be  wrong,  because  the  king  could  do  no 
wrong,  however  hard  he  tried,  and  he  really  did  try  very  hard 
during  these  twelve  years.  Seven  of  the  judges  said  that  was 
quite  true,  and  Mr.  Hampden  was  bound  to  pay  ;  five  of  the 
judges  said  that  was  quite  false,  and  Mr.  Hampden  was  not 
bound  to  pay.  So  the  king  triumphed  (as  he  thought),  by 
making  Hampden  the  most  popular  man  in  England,  wliere 
matters  were  getting  to  that  height  now  that  many  honest  Eng- 


298  A  CHILD'S  HTSTOR  V  OF  ENGLAND, 

lishmen  could  not  endure  their  country,  and  sailed  away  across 
the  seas  to  found  a  colony  in  Massachusetts  Bay  in  America. 
It  is  said  that  Hampden  himself,  and  his  relation,  Oliver  Crom- 
well, were  going  with  a  company  of  such  voyagers,  and  were 
actually  on  board  ship,  when  they  were  stopped  by  a  proclama- 
tion prohibiting  sea-captains  to  carry  out  such  passengers  with- 
out the  royal  license.  But,  O,  it  would  have  been  well  for  the 
king  if  he  had  let  them  go  ! 

This  was  the  state  of  England.  If  Laud  had  been  a  mad- 
man just  broke  loose,  he  could  not  have  done  more  mischief 
than  he  did  in  Scotland.  In  his  endeavors  (in  which  he  was 
seconded  by  the  king,  then  in  person  in  that  part  of  his  domin- 
ions) to  force  his  own  ideas  of  bishops,  and  his  own  religious 
forms  and  ceremonies,  upon  the  Scotch,  he  roused  that  nation 
to  a  perfect  frenzy.  They  formed  a  solemn  league,  which  they 
called  The  Covenant,  for  the  preservation  of  their  own  religious 
forms;  they  rose  in  arms  throughout  the  whole  country;  they 
summoned  all  their  men  to  prayers  and  sermons  twice  a  day  by 
beat  of  drum;  they  sang  psalms,  in  which  they  compared  their 
enemies  to  all  the  evil  spirits  that  ever  were  heard  of;  and  they 
solemnly  vowed  to  smite  them  with  the  sword.  At  first  the 
king  tried  force,  then  treaty,  then  a  Scottish  parliament  which 
did  not  answer  at  all.  Then  he  tried  the  Earl  of  Strafford,  for- 
merly Sir  Thomas  Wentworth ;  who,  as  Lord  Wentworth,  had 
been  governing  Ireland.  He,  too,  had  carried  it  with  a  very 
high  hand  there,  though  to  the  benefit  and  prosperity  of  that 
country. 

Strafford  and  Laud  were  for  conquering  the  Scottish  people 
by  force  of  arms.  Other  lords  who  were  taken  into  council 
recommended  that  a  parliament  should  at  last  be  called ;  10 
which  the  king  unwillingly  consented.  So,  on  the  13th  of  April, 
1640,  that  then  strange  sight,  a  parliament,  was  seen  at  West- 
minster. It  is  called  the  Short  Parliament ;  for  it  lasted  a  very 
little  while.  While  the  members  were  all  looking  at  one  another, 
doubtful  who  would  dare  to  speak,  Mr.  Pym  arose  and  set  forth 
all  that  the  king  had  done  unlawfully  during  the  past  twelve 
years,  and  what  was  the  position  to  which  England  was  reduced. 
This  great  example  set,  other  members  took  courage,  and 
spoke  the  truth  freely,  though  with  great  patience  and  modera- 
tion. The  king,  a  little  frightened,  sent  to  say,  that,  if  they  would 
grant  him  a  certain  sum  on  certain  terms,  no  more  ship-money 
should  be  raised.  They  debated  the  matter  for  two  days,  and 
then,  as  they  would  not  give  him  all  he  asked  without  promise 
of  inquiry,  he  dissolved  them. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  355 

But  they  knew  very  well  that  he  must  have  a  parliament 
now  ;  and  he  began  to  make  that  discovery  too,  though  rather 
late  in  the  day.  Wherefore,  on  the  24th  of  September,  being 
then  at  York,  witli  an  army  collected  against  the  Scottish  people, 
but  his  own  men  sullen  and  discontented  like  the  rest  of  the 
nation,  the  king  told  the  great  council  of  the  lords,  whom  he  had 
called  to  meet  him  there,  that  he  would  summon  another  par- 
liament to  assemble  on  the  3d  of  November.  The  soldiers  of 
the  Covenant  had  now  forced  their  way  into  England,  and  had 
taken  possession  of  the  northern  counties,  where  the  coals  are 
got.  As  it  would  never  do  to  be  without  coals,  and  as  the  king's 
troops  could  make  no  head  against  the  Covenanters,  so  full  of 
gloomy  zeal,  a  truce  was  made,  and  a  treaty  with  Scotland  was 
taken  into  consideration.  Meanwhile  the  northern  counties 
paid  the  Covenanters  to  leave  the  coals  alone,  and  keep  quiet. 
'We  have  now  disposed  of  the  Short  Parliament.  We  have 
next  to  see  what  memorable  things  were  done  by  the  long  one. 

Second  Part. 

The  Long  Parliament  assembled  on  the  3d  of  November, 
1641.  That  day  week  the  Earl  of  Strafford  arrived  from  York 
very  sensible  that  the  spirited  and  determined  men  who  formed 
that  Parliament  were  no  friends  towards  him,  who  had  not  only 
deserted  the  cause  of  the  people,  but  who  had  on  all  occasions 
opposed  himself  to  their  liberties.  The  king  told  him,  for  his 
comfort,  that  the  Parliament  "  should  not  hurt  one  hair  of  his 
head."  But,  on  the  very  next  day,  Mr.  Pym,  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  with  great  solemnity,  impeached  the  Earl  of 
Strafford  as  a  traitor.  He  was  immediately  taken  into  custody, 
and  fell  from  his  proud  height. 

It  was  the  22d  of  March  before  he  was  brought  to  trial  at 
Westminster  Hall ;  where,  although  he  was  very  ill  and  suffered 
great  pain,  he  defended  himself  with  such  ability  and  majesty, 
that  it  was  doubtful  whether  he  would  not  get  the  best  of  it. 
But  on  the  thirteenth  day  of  the  trial,  Pym  produced  in  the 
House  of  Commons  a  copy  of  some  notes  of  a  council,  found 
by  young  Sir  Harry  Vane  in  a  red  velvet  cabinet  belonging  to 
his  father  (Secretary  Vane,  who  sat  at  the  council-table  with 
the  Earl),  in  which  Strafford  had  distinctly  told  the  king  that 
he  was  free  from  all  rules  and  obligations  of  government,  and 
might  do  with  his  people  whatever  he  liked  ;  and  in  which  he 
added,  '*  You  have  an  army  in  Ireland  that  you  may  employ  to 
reduce  this  kingdom  to  obedience."     It  was  not  clear  whether 


^o*)  ^  cniLb's  rrisTORY  of  enclaxd. 

by  the  words  "this  kin^^dom,"  he  had  really  meant  England  or 
Scotland  ;  but  the  Parliament  contended  that  he  meant  England, 
and  this  was  treason.  At  the  same  sitting  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  it  was  resolved  to  bring  in  a  bill  of  attainder  de- 
claring the  treason  to  have  been  committed,  in  preference  to 
proceeding  with  the  trial  by  impeachment,  which  would  have 
required  the  treason  to  be  proved. 

So  a  bill  was  brought  in  at  once,  was  carried  through  the 
House  of  Commons  by  a  large  majority,  and  was  sent  up  to  the 
House  of  Lords.  While  it  was  still  uncertain  whether  tlie 
House  of  Lords  would  pass  it  and  the  king  consent  to  it,  Pym 
disclosed  to  the  House  of  Commons  that  the  king  and  queen 
had  both  been  plotting  with  the  officers  of  the  army  to  bring  up 
the  soldiers  and  control  the  Parliament,  and  also  to  introduce 
two  hundred  soldiers  into  the  tower  of  London  to  effect  the 
earl's  escape.  The  plotting  with  the  army  was  revealed  by  one 
George  Goring,  the  son  of  a  lord  of  that  name,  —  a  bad 
fellow,  who  was  one  of  the  original  plotters,  and  turned  traitor. 
The  king  had  actually  given  his  warrant  for  the  admission  of 
the  two  hundred  men  into  the  Tower,  and  they  would  have  got 
in  too,  but  for  the  refusal  of  the  governor — a  sturdy  Scotchman 
of  the  name  of  Balfour — to  admit  them.  These  matters  being 
made  public,  great  numbers  of  people  began  to  riot  outside  the 
houses  of  parliament,  and  to  cry  out  for  the  execution  of  the 
Earl  of  Strafford,  as  one  of  the  king's  chief  instruments  against 
th&m.  The  bill  passed  the  House  of  Lords  while  the  people 
were  in  this  state  of  agitation,  and  was  laid  before  the  king  for 
his  assent,  together  with  another  bill  declaring  that  the  Parlia- 
ment then  assembled  should  not  be  dissolved  or  adjourned 
without  their  own  consent.  The  king— not  unwilling  to  save  a 
faithful  servant,  though  he  had  no  great  attachment  for  him— 
was  in  some  doubt  what  to  do  ;  but  he  gave  his  consent  to  both 
bills,  although  he  in  his  heart  believed  that  the  bill  against  the 
Earl  of  Strafford  was  unlawful  and  unjust.  The  earl  had  written 
to  him,  telling  him  that  he  was  willing  to  die  for  his  sake.  But 
he  had  not  expected  that  his  royal  master  would  take  him  at 
his  word  quite  so  readily  ;  for  when  he  heard  his  doom,  he  laid 
his  hand  upon  his  heart,  and  said,  "  Put  not  your  trust  in 
princes !  " 

The  king,  who  never  could  be  straightforward  and  plain 
through  one  single  day,  or  through  one  single  sheet  of  paper, 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  Lords,  and  sent  it  by  the  young  Prince  of 
Wales,  entreating  them  to  prevail  with  the  Commons  that 
''  that  unfortunate  man  should  fulfil  the  natural  course  oi  his  life 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 


301 


in  a  close  imprisonment."  In  a  postscript  to  the  very  same 
letter,  he  added,  "  If  he  must  die,  it  were  charity  to  reprieve  him 
till  Saturday."  If  there  had  been  any  doubt  of  his  fate,  this 
weakness  and  meanness  would  have  settled  it.  The  very  next 
day,  which  was  the  12th  of  May,  he  was  brought  out  to  be  be- 
headed on  Tower  Hill. 

Archbishop  Laud  who  had  been  so  fond  of  having  people's 
iars  cropped  off  and  their  noses  slit,  was  now  confined  in  the 
Tower  too  ;  and  when  the  earl  went  by  his  window  to  his  death, 
he  was  there,  at  his  request,  to  give  him  his  blessing.  They 
had  been  great  friends  in  the  king's  cause  ;  and  the  earl  had 
written  to  him  in  the  days  of  their  power,  that  he  thought  it 
would  be  an  admirable  thing  to  have  Mr.  Hampden  publicly 
whipped  for  refusing  to  pay  the  ship-money.  However,  those 
high  and  mighty  doings  were  over  now,  and  the  earl  went  his 
way  to  death  with  dignity  and  heroism.  The  governor  wished 
him  .0  get  into  a  coach  at  the  Tower-gate,  for  fear  the  people 
should  tear  him  to  pieces  ;  but  he  said  it  was  all  one  to  him 
whether  he  died  by  the  axe  or  by  the  people's  hands.  So  he 
walked,  with  a  firm  tread  and  stately  look,  and  sometimes 
pulled  off  his  hat  to  them  as  he  passed  along.  They  were  pro- 
foundly quiet.  He  made  a  speech  on  the  scaffold  from  some 
notes  he  had  prepared  (the  paper  was  found  lying  there  after 
his  head  was  struck  off),  and  one  blow  of  the  axe  killed  him, 
in  the  forty-ninth  year  of  his  age. 

This  bold  and  daring  act  the  Parliament  accompanied  by 
other  famous  measures,  all  originating  (as  even  this  did)  in  the 
king's  having  so  grossly  and  so  long  abused  his  power.  The 
name  of  Delinquents  was  applied  to  all  sheriffs  and  other  officers 
who  had  been  concerned  in  raising  the  ship-money,  or  any  other 
money,  from  the  people,  in  an  unlawful  manner  ;  the  Hampden 
judgment  was  reversed ;  the  judges  who  had  decided  against 
Hampden  were  called  upon  to  give  large  securities  that  they 
would  take  such  consequences  as  Parliament  might  impose  upon 
them  ;  and  one  was  arrested  as  he  sat  in  high  court,  and  carried 
off  to  prison.  Laud  was  impeached  ;  the  unfortunate  victims 
whose  ears  had  been  cropped  and  whose  noses  had  been  slit 
were  brought  out  in  prison  in  triumph  ;  and  a  bill  was  passed 
declaring  that  a  parliament  should  be  called  every  third  year, 
and  that,  if  the  king  and  the  king's  officers  did  not  call  it,  the 
people  should  assemble  of  themselves  and  summon  it,  as  of  their 
own  right  and  power.  Great  illuminations  and  rejoicings  took 
phcG  over  all  these  things,  and  tiie  country  was  wildly  excited 
That  the  Parliament  took  advantage  of   this  excitement,  ani 


302  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

Stirred  them  up  by  every  means,  there  is  no  doubt ;  but  you 
are  always  to  remember  those  twelve  long  years,  during  which 
the  king  had  tried  so  hard  whether  he  really  could  do  any 
wrong  or  not. 

All  this  time  there  was  a  great  religious  outcry  against  the 
right  of  the  bishops  to  sit  in  Parliament ;  to  which  the  Scottish 
people  particularly  objected.  The  English  were  divided  on  this 
subject ;  and  partly  on  this  account,  and  partly  because  they 
imd  foolish  expectations  that  the  Parliament  would  be  able  to 
take  off  nearly  all  the  taxes,  numbers  of  them  sometimes  wa- 
vered, and  inclined  towards  the  king. 

I  believe  myself,  that  if  at  this,  or  almost  any  other  period 
of  his  life,  the  king  could  have  been  trusted  by  any  man  not 
out  of  his  senses,  he  might  have  saved  himself  and  kept  his 
throne.  But,  on  the  English  army  being  disbanded,  he  plotted 
with  the  officers  again,  as  he  had  done  before,  and  established 
the  fact  beyond  all  doubt  by  putting  his  signature  of  approval 
to  a  petition  against  the  Parliamentary  leaders  which  was  drawn 
up  by  certain  officers.  When  the  Scottish  army  was  disbanded, 
he  went  to  Edinburgh  in  four  days, — which  was  going  very  fast 
at  that  time, — to  plot  again,  and  so  darkly  too,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  decide  what  his  whole  object  was.  Some  suppose  that  he 
wanted  to  gain  over  the  Scottish  Parliament,  as  he  did  in  fact 
gain  over,  by  presents  and  favors,  many  Scottish  lords  and  men 
of  power.  Some  think  that  he  went  to  get  proofs  against  the 
Parliamentary  leaders  in  England  of  their  having  treasonably 
invited  the  Scottish  people  to  come  and  help  them.  With  what- 
ever object  he  went  to  Scotland,  he  did  little  good  by  going. 
At  the  instigation  of  the  Earl  of  Montrose,  a  desperate  man  who 
was  then  in  prison  for  plotting,  he  tried  to  kidnap  three  Scottish 
lords  who  escaped.  A  committee  of  the  Parliament  at  home, 
who  had  followed  to  watch  him,  writing  an  account  of  this  In- 
cident, as  it  was  called,  to  the  Parliament,  the  Parliament  made 
a  fresh  stir  about  it ;  were,  or  feigned  to  be,  much  alarmed  for 
themselves  ;  and  wrote  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  the  commander-in- 
chief,  for  a  guard  to  protect  them. 

It  is  not  absolutely  proved  that  the  king  plotted  in  Ireland 
besides,  but  it  is  very  probable  that  he  did,  and  that  the  queen 
did,  and  that  he  had  some  wild  hope  of  gaining  the  Irish  people 
over  to  his  side  by  favoring  a  rise  among  them.  Whether  or  no, 
they  did  rise  in  a  most  brutal  and  savage  rebellion  ;  in  which, 
encouraged  by  their  priests,  they  committed  such  atrocities  upon 
numbers  of  the  English,  of  both  sexes  and  of  all  ages,  as  no- 
body could  believe,  but  for  their  being  related  on  oath  by  eye- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  303 

witnesses.  Whether  one  hundred  thousand  or  two  hundred 
thousand  Protestants  were  murdered  in  this  outbreak  is  uncer- 
tain ;  but  that  it  was  as  ruthless  and  barbarous  an  outbreak  as 
ever  was  known  among  any  savage  people  is  certain. 

The  king  came  home  from  Scotland,  determined  to  make  a 
great  struggle  lor  his  lost  power.  He  believed,  that,  through 
his  presents  and  favors,  Scotland  would  take  no  part  against 
him  ;  and  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  received  him  with  such  a 
magnificent  dinner  that  he  thought  he  must  have  become 
popular  again  in  England.  It  would  take  a  good  many  lord 
mayors,  however,  to  make  a  people  ;  and  the  king  soon  found 
himself  mistaken. 

Not  so  soon,  though,  but  that  there  was  a  great  oppositior. 
in  the  Parliament  to  a  celebrated  paper  put  forth  by  Pym  and, 
Hampden  and  the  rest,  called  "  The  Remonstrance  ; "  which 
set  forth  all  the  illegal  acts  that  the  king  had  ever  done,  but 
politely  laid  the  blame  of  them  on  his  bad  advisers.  Even  when 
it  was  passed,  and  presented  to  him,  the  king  still  thought  him- 
self strong  enough  to  discharge  Balfour  from  his  command  in  thft 
Tower,  and  to  put  in  his  place  a  man  of  bad  character,  to  whom 
the  Commons  instantly  objected,  and  w^hom  he  was  obliged  to 
abandon.  At  this  time,  the  old  outcry  about  the  bishops  be- 
came louder  than  ever  ;  and  the  old  Archbishop  of  York  was  so 
near  being  murdered  as  he  went  down  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
— being  laid  hold  of  by  the  mob  and  violently  knocked  about, 
in  return  for  very  foolishly  scolding  a  shrill  boy  who  was  yelp- 
ing out  "  No  bishops  !  " — that  he  sent  for  all  the  bishops  who 
were  in  town,  and  proposed  to  them  to  sign  a  declaration,  that, 
as  they  could  no  longer  without  danger  to  their  lives  attend  their 
duty  in  Parliament,  they  protested  against  the  lawfulness  of 
everything  done  in  their  absence.  This  they  asked  the  king  to 
send  to  the  House  of  Lords,  which  he  did.  Then  the  House  of 
Commons  impeached  the  whole  party  of  bishops,  and  sent  them 
off  to  the  Tower. 

Taking  no  warning  from  this,  but  encouraged  by  there  being 
a  moderate  party  in  the  Parliament  who  objected  to  these  strong 
measures,  the  king,  on  the  3d  of  January,  1642,  took  the  rashest 
step  that  ever  was  taken  by  mortal  man. 

Of  his  own  accord  and  without  advice,  he  sent  the  attorney- 
general  to  the  House  of  Lords,  to  accuse  of  treason  certain 
members  of  Parliament  who  as  popular  leaders  were  the  most 
obnoxious  to  him  :  Lord  Kimbolton,  Sir  Arthur  Haselrig,  Den- 
zil  Hollis,  John  Pym  (they  used  to  call  him  King  Pym,  he  pos- 
sessed such  power  and  looked  so  big),  John  Hampden,  anrj 


304 


A  CmiD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 


William  Strode.  The  houses  of  those  members  he  caused  to 
be  entered,  and  their  papers  to  be  sealed  up.  At  the  same 
time,  he  sent  a  messenger  to  the  House  of  Commons  demand- 
ing to  have  the  five  gentlemen  who  were  members  of  that  House 
immediately  produced.  To  this  the  House  replied  that  they 
should  appear  as  soon  as  there  was  any  legal  charge  against 
them  and  immediately  adjourned. 

Next  day,  the  House  of  Commons  sent  into  the  city  to  let 
the  lord  mayor  know  that  their  privileges  are  invaded  by  the 
king,  and  that  there  is  no  safety  for  anybody  or  anything. 
Then,  when  the  five  members  are  gone  out  of  the  way  down 
comes  the  king  himself,  with  all  his  guard,  and  from  two  to  three 
hundred  gentlemen  and  soldiers,  of  whom  the  greater  part 
were  armed.  These  he  leaves  in  the  hall ;  and  then,  with  his 
nephew  at  his  side,  goes  into  the  House,  takes  off  his  hat,  and 
walks  up  to  the  speaker's  chair.  The  speaker  leaves  it,  the 
king  stands  in  front  of  it,  looks  about  him  steadily  for  a  little 
while,  and  says  he  has  come  for  those  five  members.  No  one 
speaks,  and  then  he  calls  John  Pym  by  name.  No  one  speaks, 
and  then  he  calls  Denzil  Hollis  by  name.  No  one  speaks,  and 
then  he  asks  the  Speaker  of  the  House  where  those  five  mem- 
bers are  ?  The  speaker,  answering  on  his  knee,  nobly  replies 
that  he  is  the  servant  of  that  House,  and  that  he  has  neither 
eyes  to  see  nor  tongue  to  speak  anything  but  what  the  JH buse 
commands  him.  Upon  this,  the  king,  beaten  from  that  time 
evermore,  replies  that  he  will  seek  them  for  himself,  for  they  have 
committed  treason  ;  and  goes  out,  with  his  hat  in  his  iiand, 
amid  some  audible  murmurs  from  the  members. 

No  words  can  describe  the  hurry  that  arose  out  of  lioors 
when  all  this  was  known.  The  five  members  had  gons  for 
safety  to  a  house  in  Coleman  Street,  in  the  city,  where  they 
were  guarded  all  night ;  and  indeed  the  whole  city  watched  in 
arms  like  an  army.  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  king, 
already  frightened  at  what  he  had  done,  came  to  the  Guildhall, 
v/ith  only  half  a  dozen  lords,  and  made  a  speech  to  the  people, 
hoping  they  would  not  shelter  those  whom  he  accused  of  treason. 
Next  day,  he  issued  a  proclamation  for  the  apprehension  of  the 
five  members  ;  but  the  Parliament  minded  it  so  little,  that  they 
made  great  arrangements  for  having  them  brought  down  to 
Westminster  in  great  state,  five  days  afterwards.  The  king  was 
so  alarmed  now  at  his  own  imprudence,  if  not  for  his  own  safety, 
that  he  left  his  palace  at  Whitehall,  and  went  away  with  his 
queen  and  children  to  Hampton  Court. 

\t  was  the  nth  of  M4v^-  wh^n  the  five  members  were  carried 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 


305 


in  state  and  triumph  to  Westminster.  They  were  taken  by 
water.  The  river  could  not  be  seen  for  the  boats  on  it;  and 
the  five  members  were  hemmed  in  by  barges  full  of  men  and 
great  guns,  ready  to  protect  them  at  any  cost.  Along  the 
Strand  a  large  body  of  the  train-bands  of  London,  under  their 
commander,  Skippon,  marched  to  be  ready  to  assist  the  little 
fleet.  Beyond  them,  came  a  crowd  who  choked  the  streets, 
roaring  incessantly  about  the  bishops  and  the  papists,  and  cry- 
ing out  contemptuously,  as  they  passed  Whitehall,  "  What  has 
become  of  the  king  ?  "  With  this  great  noise  outside  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  with  great  silence  within,  Mr.  Pym  rose,  and 
informed  the  House  of  the  great  kindness  with  which  they  had 
been  received  in  the  city.  Upon  that  the  House  called  the 
sheriffs  in  and  thanked  them,  and  requested  the  train-bands, 
under  their  commander  Skippon,  to  guard  the  House  of  Com- 
mons every  day.  Then  came  four  thousand  men  on  horseback 
out  of  Buckinghamshire,  offering  their  services  as  a  guard  too, 
and  bearing  a  petition  to  the  king,  complaining  of  the  injury 
that  had  been  done  to  Mr.  Hampden,  who  was  their  vounty- 
man,  and  much  beloved  and  honored. 

When  the  king  set  off  for  Hampton  Court,  the  gentlemen 
and  soldiers  who  had  been  with  him  followed  him  out  of  town 
as  far  as  Kingston-upon  Thames ;  next  day.  Lord  Digby  came 
to  them  from  the  king  at  Hampton  Court,  in  his  coach  and  six, 
to  inform  them  that  the  king  accepted  their  protection.  This, 
the  Parliament  said,  was  making  war  against  the  kingdom  ;  and 
Lord  Digby  fled  abroad.  The  Parliament  then  immediately 
applied  themselves  to  getting  hold  of  the  military  power  of  the 
country,  well  knowing  that  the  king  was  already  trying  hard  to 
use  it  against  them,  and  that  he  had  secretly  sent  the  Earl  of 
Newcastle  to  Hull,  to  secure  a  valuable  magazine  of  arms  and 
gunpowder  that  was  there.  In  those  times,  every  county  had 
its  own  magazines  of  arms  and  powder,  for  its  own  train-bands, 
or  militia ;  so  the  Parliament  brought  in  a  bill  claiming  the 
right  (which  up  to  this  time  had  belonged  to  the  king)  of  ap- 
pointing the  lord  lieutenants  of  counties,  who  commanded  these 
train-bands  ;  also,  of  having  all  the  forts,  castles,  and  garrisons 
in  the  kingdom  put  into  the  hands  of  such  governors  as  they, 
the  Parliament,  could  confide  in.  It  also  passed  a  law  depriv- 
ing the  bishops  of  their  votes.  The  king  gave  his  assent  to 
that  bill,  but  would  not  abandon  the  right  of  appointing  the 
lord  lieutenants,  though  he  said  he  was  willing  to  appoint  such 
as  might  be  suggested  to  him  by  the  Parliament.  When  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke  asked  him  whether  he  would  not  give  way 


3o6  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

on  that  question  for  a  time,  he  said,  "  By  God !  not  for  on^ 
hour  ; "  and  upon  this  he  and  the  Parliament  went  to  war. 

His  young  daughter  was  betrothed  to  the  Prince  of  Orange. 
On  pretence  of  taking  her  to  the  country  of  her  future  husband, 
the  queen  was  already  got  safely  away  to  Holland,  there  to 
pawn  the  crown-jewels  for  money  to  raise  an  army  on  the  king's 
side.  The  lord  admiral  being  sick,  the  House  of  Commons  now 
named  the  Earl  of  Warwick  to  hold  his  place  for  a  year.  The 
king  named  another  gentleman  ;  the  House  of  Commons  took 
its  own  way,  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick  became  lord  admiral 
without  the  king's  consent.  The  Parliament  sent  orders  down 
to  Hull  to  have  that  magazine  removed  to  London ;  the  king 
went  down  to  take  it  himself.  The  citizens  would  not  admit 
him  into  the  town,  and  the  governor  would  not  admit  him  into 
the  castle.  The  Parliament  resolved,  that  whatever  the  two 
Houses  passed,  and  the  king  would  not  consent  to,  should  be 
called  an  Ordinance,  and  should  be  as  much  a  law  as  if  he  did 
consent  to  it.  The  king  protested  against  this,  and  gave  notice 
that  these  ordinance  were  not  to  be  obeyed.  The  king,  at- 
tended by  the  majority  of  the  House  of  Peers,  and  by  many 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  established  hiniself  at 
York.  The  chancellor  went  to  him  with  the  Great  Seal,  and 
the  Parliament  made  a  new  Great  Seal.  The  queen  sent  over 
a  ship  full  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  the  king  issued  letters 
to  borrow  money  at  high  interest.  The  Parliament  raised 
twenty  regiments  of  foot,  and  seventy-five  troops  of  horse ;  and 
the  people  willingly  aided  them  with  their  money,  plate,  jewelry, 
and  trinkets, — the  married  women  even  with  their  wedding- 
rings.  Every  member  of  parliament  who.  could  raise  a  troop  or 
a  regiment  in  his  own  part  of  the  country  dressed  it  according 
to  his  taste  and  in  his  own  colors,  and  commanded  it.  Fore- 
most among  them  all,  Oliver  Cromwell  raised  a  troop  of  horse, 
thoroughly  in  earnest  and  thoroughly  well  armed,  who  were, 
perhaps,  the  best  soldiers  that  ever  were  seen. 

In  some  of  these  proceedings,  this  famous  Parliament  passed 
the  bounds  of  previous  law  and  custom,  yielded  to  and  favored 
riotous  assemblages  of  the  people,  and  acted  tyrannically  in 
imprisoning  some  who  differed  from  the  popular  leaders.  But 
again,  you  are  always  to  remember  that  the  twelve  years  during 
which  the  king  had  had  his  own  wilful  way  had  gone  before ; 
and  that  nothing  could  make  the  times  what  thy  might,  could, 
would,  or  should  have  been  if  those  twelve  years  had  never 
rolled  away. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  307 

Third  Part. 

I  shall  not  try  to  relate  the  particulars  of  the  great  civil 

war  between  King  Charles  the  First  and  the  Long  ParHament, 
which  lasted  nearly  four  years,  and  a  full  account  of  which 
would  fill  many  large  books.  It  was  a  sad  thing  that  Eng- 
lishmen should  once  more  be  fighting  against  Englishmen  on 
English  ground  ;  but  it  is  some  consolation  to  know  that  on 
both  sides  there  was  great  humanity,  forbearance,  and  honor. 
The  soldiers  of  the  Parliament  were  far  more  remarkable  for 
these  good  qualities  than  the  soldiers  of  the  king  (many  of 
whom  fought  for  mere  pay,  without  much  caring  for  the  cause) ; 
but  those  of  the  nobility  and  gentry  who  were  on  the  king's 
side  were  so  brave,  and  so  faithful  to  him,  that  their  conduct 
cannot  but  command  our  highest  admiration.  Among  them 
were  great  numbers  of  Catholics,  who  took  the  royal  side  be- 
cause the  queen  was  so  strongly  of  their  persuasion. 

The  king  might  have  distinguished  some  of  these  gallant 
spirits,  if  he  had  been  as  generous  a  spirit  himself,  by  giving 
them  the  command  of  his  army.  Instead  of  that,  however, 
true  to  his  old  high  notions  of  royalty,  he  intrusted  it  to  his 
two  nephews.  Prince  Rupert  and  Prince  Maurice,  who  were  of 
royal  blood,  and  came  over  from  abroad  to  help  him.  It  might 
have  been  better  for  him  if  they  had  stayed  away  ;  since  Prince 
Rupert  was  an  impetuous,  hot-headed  fellow,  whose  only  idea 
was  to  dash  into  battle  at  all  times  and  seasons,  and  lay  about 
him. 

The  general-in-chief  of  the  Parliamentary  army  was  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  a  gentleman  of  honor  and  an  excellent  soldier. 
A  little  while  before  the  war  broke  out,  there  had  been  some 
rioting  at  Westminster,  between  certain  officious  law-students 
and  noisy  soldiers,  and  shopkeepers  and  their  apprentices 
and  the  general  people  in  the  streets.  At  that  time  the  king's 
friends  called  the  crowd  Roundheads,  because  the  apprentices 
wore  short  hair  ;  the  crowd,  in  return,  called  their  opponents 
Cavaliers,  meaning  that  they  were  a  blustering  set,  who  pre- 
tended to  be  very  military.  These  two  words  now  began  to 
be  used  to  distinguish  the  two  sides  in  the  civil  war.  The 
royalists  also  called  the  parliamentary  men  Rebels  and  Rogues, 
while  the  parliament  men  called  them  Malignants,  and  spoke  of 
themselves  as  the  Godly,  the  Honest,  &c. 

The  war  broke  out  at  Portsmouth,  where  that  double  traitor 
Goring  had  again  gone  over  to  the  king,  and  was  beseiged  by 
the  Parliamentary  troops.     Upon  this,  the  king  proclaimed  the 


3o8  ^  CHILD'S  HIS  WRY  Of  ENGlA.<D. 

Earl  of  Essex,  and  the  officers  serving  under  him,  traitors,  and 
called  upon  his  luyal  subjects  to  meet  him  in  arms,  at  Notting- 
ham, on  the  25th  of  August.  But  his  royal  subjects  came  about 
him  in  scanty  numbers  ;  and  it  was  a  windy,  gloomy  day,  and 
the  royal  standard  got  blown  down  ;  and  the  whole  affair  was 
very  melancholy.  The  chief  engagements  after  this  took  place 
in  the  vale  of  the  Red  Horse  near  Banbury,  at  Brentford,  at 
Devizes,  at  Chalgrave  Field  (when  Mr.  Hampden  was  so  sorely 
wounded,  while  fighting  at  the  head  of  his  men,  that  he  died 
within  a  week),  at  Newbury  (in  which  battle  Lord  Falkland, 
one  of  the  best  noblemen  on  the  king's  side,  was  killed),  at 
Leicester,  at  Naseby,  at  Winchester,  at  Marston  Moor  near 
York,  at  Newcastle,  and  in  many  other  parts  of  England  and 
Scotland.  These  battles  were  attended  with  various  successes. 
At  one  time,  the  king  was  victorious  ;  at  another  time,  the  Par- 
liament. But  almost  all  the  great  and  busy  towns  were  against 
the  king;  and  when  it  was  considered  necessary  to  fortify 
London,  all  ranks  of  people,  from  laboring  men  and  women  up 
to  lords  and  ladies,  worked  hard  together  with  heartiness  and 
good-will.  The  most  distinguished  leaders  on  the  parliamentary 
side  were  Hampden,  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax,  and,  above  all,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  and  his  son-in-law  Ireton. 

During  the  whole  of  this  war,  the  people,  to  whom  it  was 
very  expensive  and  irksome,  and  to  whom  it  was  made  the 
more  distressing  by  almost  every  family  being  divided, — some 
of  its  members  attaching  themselves  to  one  side  and  some  to 
the  other,  were  over  and  over  again  most  anxious  for  peace. 
So  were  some  of  the  best  men  in  each  cause.  Accordingly, 
treaties  of  peace  were  discussed  between  commissioners  from 
the  Parliament  and  the  king, — at  York,  at  Oxford  (where  the 
king  held  a  little  parliament  of  his  own),  and  at  Uxbridge. 
But  they  came  to  nothing.  In  all  these  negotiations,  and  in  all 
his  difficulties,  the  king  showed  himself  at  his  best.  He  was 
courageous,  cool,  self-possessed,  and  clever ;  but  the  old  taint 
of  his  character  was  always  in  him,  and  he  was  never  for  one 
single  moment  to  be  trusted.  Lord  Clarendon,  the  historian, 
one  of  his  highest  admirers,  supposes'that  he  had  unhappily 
promised  the  queen  never  to  make  peace  without  her  consent, 
and  that  this  must  often  be  taken  as  his  excuse.  He  never 
kept  his  word  from  night  to  morning.  He  signed  a  cessation 
of  hostilities  with  the  blood-stained  Irish  rebels  for  a  sum  of 
money,  and  invited  the  Irish  regiments  over  to  help  him  against 
the  Parliament.  In  the  battle  of  Naseby,  his  cabinet  was 
seized,  and  was  found  to  contain  a  correspondence  with  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST.  309 

queen,  in  which  he  expressly  told  her  that  he  had  deceu^ed  the 
Parliament, — a  mongrel  Parliament,  he  called  it  now,  as  an  im- 
provement on  his  old  term  of  vipers, — in  pretending  to  reco<>-- 
nize  it,  and  to  treat  with  it ;  and  from  which  it  further  appeared 
that  it  had  long  been  in  secret  treaty  with  the  Duke  of  Lor- 
raine for  a  foreign  army  of  ten  thousand  men.  Disappointed 
in  this,  he  sent  a  most  devoted  friend  of  his,  the  Earl  of  Gla- 
morgan, to  Ireland,  to  conclude  a  secret  treaty  with  the  Catholic 
powers,  to  send  him  an  Irish  army  of  ten  thousand  men  ;  \\\ 
return  for  which  he  was  to  bestow  great  favors  on  the  Catholic 
religion.  And  when  this  treaty  was  discovered  in  the  carriage 
of  a  fighting  Irish  archbishop  who  was  killed  in  one  of  the 
many  skirmishes  of  those  days,  he  basely  denied  and  deserted 
his  attached  friend,  the  earl,  on  his  being  charged  with  high 
treason  ;  and  even  worse  than  this — had  left  blanks  in  the 
secret  instructions  he  gave  with  his  own  kingly  hand,  expressly 
that  he  might  thus  save  himself. 

At  last,  on  the  27th  day  of  April,  1649,  the  king  found  him- 
self in  the  city  of  Oxford,  so  surrounded  by  the  parliamentary 
army,  who  were  closing  in  upon  him  on  all  sides,  that  he  felt 
that  if  he  would  escape  he  must  delay  no  longer.  So  that 
night,  having  altered  the  cut  of  his  hair  and  beard,  he  was 
dressed  up  as  a  servant,  and  put  upon  a  horse  with  a  cloak 
strapped  behind  him,  and  rode  out  of  the  town  behind  one  of 
his  own  faithful  followers,  with  a  clergyman  of  that  country, 
who  knew  the  road  well,  for  a  guide.  He  rode  towards  Lon- 
don as  far  as  Harrow,  and  then  altered  his  plans,  and  resolved, 
it  would  seem,  to  go  to  the  Scottish  camp.  The  Scottish  men 
had  been  invited  over  to  help  the  parliamentary  army,  and  had 
a  large  force  then  in  England.  The  king  was  so  desperately 
intriguing  in  everything  he  did,  that  it  is  doubtful  what  he  ex- 
actly meant  by  this  step.  He  took  it,  anyhow,  and  delivered 
himself  up  to  the  Earl  of  Leven,  the  Scottish  general-in-chief, 
who  treated  him  as  an  honorable  prisoner.  Negotiations  be- 
tween the  Parliament  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Scottish  au- 
thorities on  the  other,  as  to  what  should  be  done  with  him 
lasted  until  the  following  February.  Then,  when  the  king  had 
refused  to  the  Parliament  the  concession  of  that  old  militia 
ooint  for  twenty  years,  and  had  refused  to  Scotland  the  recogni- 
tion of  its  solemn  league  and  covenant,  Scotland  got  a  hand- 
some sum  for  its  army  and  its  help,  and  the  king  into  the  bar- 
gain. He  was  taken,  by  certain  parliamentary  commissioners 
appointed  to  receive  him,  to  one  of  iiis  own  bouses,  called 
Holmby  House,  near  Althorpe,  in  Northamptonshire. 


310 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


While  the  civil  war  was  still  In  progress,  John  Pym  died, 
and  was  buried  with  great  honor  in  Westminster  Abbey, — not 
with  greater  honor  than  he  deserved,  for  the  liberties  of  Eng- 
lishmen owe  a  mighty  debt  to  Pym  and  Hampden.  The  war 
was  but  newly  over  when  the  Earl  of  Essex  died,  of  an  illness 
brought  on  by  his  having  overheated  himself  in  a  stag-hunt  in 
Windsor  Forest.  He,  too,  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
with  great  state.  I  wish  it  were  not  necessary  to  add  that 
Archbishop  Laud  died  upon  the  scaffold,  when  the  war  was 
not  yet  done.  His  trial  lasted  in  all  nearly  a  year ;  and,  it 
being  doubtful  even  then  whether  the  charges  brought  against 
him  amounted  to  treason,  the  odious  old  contrivance  of  the 
worst  kings  was  resorted  to,  and  a  bill  of  attainder  was  brought 
in  against  him.  He  was  a  violently  prejudiced  and  mischiev- 
ous person  ;  had  had  strong  ear-cropping  and  nose-splitting 
propensities,  as  you  know  ;  and  had  done  a  world  of  harm. 
But  he  died  peaceably,  and  like  a  brave  old  man. 

Fourth  Part. 

When  the  Parliament  had  got  the  king  into  their  hands, 
they  became  very  anxious  to  get  rid  of  their  army,  in  which 
Oliver  Cromwell  had  begun  to  acquire  great  power ;  not  only 
because  of  his  courage  and  high  abilities,  but  because  he  pro- 
fessed to  be  very  sincere  in  the  Scottish  sort  of  Puritan  religion, 
that  was  then  exceedingly  popular  among  the  soldiers.  They 
were  as  much  opposed  to  the  bishops  as  to  the  pope  himself  \ 
and  the  very  privates,  drummers,  and  trumpeters,  had  such  an 
inconvenient  habit  of  starting  up  and  preaching  long-winded 
discourses,  that  I  would  not  have  belonged  to  that  army  on  any 
account. 

So  the  Parliament,  being  far  from  sure  but  that  the  army 
might  begin  to  preach  and  fight  against  them,  now  it  had  nothing 
else  to  do,  proposed  to  disband  the  greater  part  of  it,  to  send 
another  part  to  serve  in  Ireland  against  the  rebels,  and  co  keep 
only  a  small  force  in  England.  But  the  army  would  not  con 
sent  to  be  broken  up,  except  upon  its  own  conditions  ;  and  when 
the  Parliament  showed  an  intention  of  compelling  it,  it  acted 
for  itself  in  an  unexpected  manner.  A  certain  cornet,  of  the 
name  of  Joice,  arrived  at  Holmby  House  one  night,  attended 
by  four  hundred  horsemen,  went  into  the  king's  room  with  his 
hat  in  one  hand  and  a  pistol  in  the  other,  and  told  the  king  that 
he  had  come  to  take  him  away.  The  king  was  willing  enough 
to  go,  and  only  stipulated  that  he  should  be  publicly  required 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST, 


3" 


to  do  so  next  morning.  The  next  morning,  accordingly,  he 
appeared  on  the  top  of  the  steps  of  the  house,  and  asked  Cor- 
net Joice  before  his  men  and  the  guard  set  there  by  the  ParUa- 
ment,  what  authority  he  had  for  taking  him  away  ?  To  this 
Cornet  Joice  repUed,  "  The  authority  of  the  army."  "  Have 
you  a  written  commission  ?  "  said  the  king.  Joice,  pointing  to 
his  four  hundred  men  on  horseback,  rephed,  "  That  is  my  com- 
mission." *'  Well,"  said  the  king,  smiling  as  if  he  were  pleased, 
"  I  never  before  read  such  a  commission  ;  but  it  is  written  in  a 
fair  and  legible  character.  This  is  a  company  of  as  handsome, 
proper  gentlemen  as  I  have  seen  a  long  while."  He  was  asked 
where  he  would  like  to  live,  and  he  said  at  Newmarket.  So  to 
Newmarket  he  and  Cornet  Joice  and  the  four  hundred  horse- 
men rode ;  the  king  remarking,  in  the  same  smiling  way, 
that  he  could  ride  as  far  at  a  spell  as  Cornet  Joice  or  any  man 
there. 

The  king  quite  believed,  I  think,  that  the  army  were  his 
friends.  He  said  as  much  to  Fairfax  when  that  general,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  and  Ireton  went  to  persuade  him  to  return  to  the 
custody  of  the  Parliament.  He  preferred  to  remain  as  he  was, 
and  resolved  to  remain  as  he  was.  And  when  the  army  moved 
nearer  and  nearer  to  London  to  frighten  the  Parliament  into 
yielding  to  their  demands,  they  took  the  king  with  them.  It 
was  a  deplorable  thing  that  England  should  be  at  the  mercy  of 
a  great  body  of  soldiers  with  arms  in  their  hands ,  but  the  king 
certainly  favored  them,  at  this  important  time  of  his  life,  as  com- 
pared with  the  more  lawful  pov.c r  that  tried  to  control  him.  It 
much  be  added,  however,  that  they  treated  him,  as  yet,  more  re- 
spectfully and  kindly  than  the  Parliament  had  done.  They 
allowed  him  to  be  attended  by  his  own  servants,  to  be  splendidly 
entertained  at  various  houses,  and  to  see  his  children — at  Caves- 
ham  House,  near  Reading — for  two  days.  Whereas  the  Parlia- 
ment had  been  rather  hard  with  him,  and  had  only  allowed  him 
to  ride  out  and  play  at  bowls. 

It  is  much  to  be  believed,  that  if  the  king  could  have  been 
trusted,  even  at  this  time,  he  might  have  been  saved.  Even 
Oliver  Cromwell  expressly  said  that  he  did  believe  that  no  man 
could  enjoy  his  possessions  in  peace  unless  the  king  had  his 
rights.  He  was  not  unfriendly  towards  the  king ;  he  had  been 
present  when  he  received  his  cinldren,  and  had  been  much 
affected  by  the  pitiable  nature  of  the  scene  ;  he  saw  the  king 
often ;  he  frequently  walked  and  talked  with  him  in  the  long 
galleries  and  pleasant  gardens  of  the  palace  at  Hampton  Court, 
whither  he  was  now  removed ;  and  in  all  this  risk  something 


$12  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

of  his  influence  with  the  army.  But  the  king  was  in  secret 
hopes  of  help  from  the  Scottish  people  ;  and  the  moment  he 
was  encouraged  to  join  them  he  began  to  be  cool  to  his  new 
friends,  the  army,  and  to  tell  the  officers  that  they  could  not 
possibly  fo  do  without  him.  At  the  very  time,  too,  when  he  was 
promising  to  make  Cromwell  and  Ireton  noblemen,  if  they  would 
help  him  up  to  his  old  height,  he  was  writing  to  the  queen  that 
he  meant  to  hang  them.  They  both  afterwards  declared  that 
they  had  been  privately  informed  that  such  a  letter  would  be 
found,  on  a  certain  evening,  sewed  up  in  a  saddle  which  would 
be  taken  to  the  Blue  Boar  in  Holborn  to  be  sent  to  Dover  ;  and 
that  they  went  there,  disguised  as  common  soldiers,  and  sat 
drinking  in  the  innyard  until  a  man  came  with  the  saddle,  which 
they  ripped  up  with  their  knives,  and  therein  found  the  letter. 
I  see  little  reason  to  doubt  the  story.  It  is  certain  that  Oliver 
Cromwell  told  one  of  the  king's  most  faithful  followers  that  the 
king  could  not  be  trusted,  and  that  he  would  not  be  answerable 
if  anything  amiss  were  to  happen  to  him.  Still,  even  after  that 
he  kept  a  promise  he  had  made  to  the  king,  by  letting  him  know 
that  there  was  a  plot  with  a  certain  portion  of  the  arm.y  to  seize 
him.  I  believe  that,  in  fact,  he  sincerely  wanted  the  king  to 
escape  abroad,  and  so  to  be  got  rid  of  without  more  trouble  or 
danger.  That  Oliver  himself  had  work  enough  with  the  army 
is  pretty  plain  ;  for  some  of  the  troops  were  so  mutinous  against 
him,  and  against  those  who  acted  with  him  at  this  time,  that  he 
found  it  necessary  to  have  one  man  shot  at  the  head  of  his 
regiment  to  overawe  the  rest. 

The  king,  when  he  received  Oliver's  warning,  make  his 
escape  from  Hampton  Court ;  after  some  indecision  and  uncer- 
tainty, he  went  to  Carisbrooke  Castle  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  At 
first  he  was  pretty  free  there  ;  but  even  there,  he  carried  on  a 
pretended  treaty  with  the  Parliament,  while  he  was  really  treat- 
ing with  commissioners  from  Scotland  to  send  an  army  into 
England  to  take  his  part.  When  he  broke  off  this  treaty  with 
the  Parliament  (having  settled  with  Scotland),  and  was  treated 
as  a  prisoner,  his  treatment  was  not  changed  too  soon,  for  he 
had  plotted  to  escape  that  very  night  to  a  ship  sent  by  the  queen, 
which  was  lying  off  the  island. 

He  was  doomed  to  be  disappointed  in  his  hopes  from  Scot- 
land. The  agreement  he  had  made  with  the  Scottish  Commis- 
sioners was  not  favorable  enough  to  the  religion  of  that  country 
to  please  the  Scottish  clergy  ;  and  they  preached  against  it. 
The  consequence  was,  that  the  array  raised  in  Scotland  and 
seat  over  was  too  small  to  do  much  j  and  that,  although  it  was 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 


313 


helped  by  a  rising  of  the  royalists  in  England  and  by  good 
soldiers  from  Ireland,  it  could  make  no  head  against  the  parlia- 
mentary army  under  such  men  as  Cromwell  and  Fairfax.  The 
king's  eldest  son,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  came  over  from  Holland 
with  nineteen  ships  (a  part  of  the  English  fleet  having  gone 
over  to  him)  to  help  his  father :  but  nothing  came  of  his  voyage, 
and  he  was  fain  to  return.  The  most  remarkable  event  of  this 
second  civil  war  was  the  cruel  execution  by  the  Parliamentary 
General,  of  Sir  Charles  Lucas  and  Sir  George  Lisle,  two  grand 
Royalist  generals,  who  had  bravely  defended  Colchester  under 
every  disadvantage  of  famine  and  distress  for  nearly  three 
months.  When  Sir  Charles  Lucas  was  shot,  Sir  George  Lisle 
kissed  his  body,  and  said  to  the  soldiers  who  were  to  shoot 
him,  "  Come  nearer,  and  make  sure  of  me."  "  I  warrant  you, 
Sir  George,"  said  one  of  the  soldiers,  "we  shall  hit  you." 
"  Ay  ?  "  he  returned  with  a  smile,  *'  but  I  have  been  nearer  to 
you,  my  friends,  many  a  time,  and  you  have  missed  me." 

The  Parliament,  after  being  fearfully  bullied  by  the  army, 
— who  demanded  to  have  seven  members  whom  they  disliked 
given  up  to  them, — had  voted  that  they  would  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  the  king.  On  the  conclusion,  however,  of  this 
second  civil  war  (which  did  not  last  more  than  six  months), 
they  appointed  commissioners  to  treat  with  him.  The  king, 
then  so  far  released  again  as  to  be  allowed  to  live  in  a  private 
house  at  Newport,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  managed  his  own  part 
of  the  negotiation  with  a  sense  that  was  admired  by  all  who 
saw  him,  and  gave  up,  in  the  end,  all  that  was  asked  of  him, — 
even  yielding  (which  he  had  steadily  refused  so  far)  to  the  tem- 
porary abolition  of  the  bishops,  and  the  transfer  of  their  Church 
land  to  the  crown.  Still,  with  his  old  fatal  vice  upon  him, 
when  his  best  friends  joined  the  commissioners  in  beseeching 
him  to  yield  all  those  points  as  the  only  means  of  saving  him- 
self from  the  army,  he  was  plotting  to  escape  from  the  island  ; 
he  was  holding  correspondence  with  his  friends  and  the  Catho- 
lics in  Ireland,  though  declaring  that  he  was  not ;  and  he  was 
writing,  with  his  own  hanj,  that,  m  what  he  yielded,  he  meant 
nothing  but  to  get  time  to  escape. 

Matters  were  at  this  pass  when  the  army,  resolved  to  defy 
the  Parliament,  marched  up  to  London.  The  Parliament,  not 
afraid  of  them  now,  and  boldly  led  by  Hollis,  voted  that  the 
king's  concessions  were  sufficient  ground  for  settling  the  peace 
of  the  kingdom.  Upon  that,  Colonel  Rich  and  Colonel  Pride 
went  down  to  the  House  of  Commons  with  a  regiment  of 
horse-soldiers   and   a   regiment  of  foot ;   ^nd  Colonel  Pride, 


314  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

standing  in  the  lobby  with  a  list  of  the  members  who  were  ob- 
noxious to  the  army  in  his  hand,  had  them  pointed  out  to  him 
as  they  came  through,  and  took  them  all  into  custody.  This 
proceeding  was  afterwards  called  by  the  people,  for  a  joke, 
Pride's  Purge.  Cromwell  was  in  the  North,  at  the  head  of  his 
men,  at  the  time,  but  when  he  came  home,  approved  of  what 
had  been  done. 

What  with  imprisoning  some  members,  and  causing  others 
to  stay  away,  the  army  had  now  reduced  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  some  fifty  or  so.  These  soon  voted  that  it  was  treason 
in  a  king  to  make  war  against  his  parliament  and  his  people, 
and  sent  an  ordinance  up  to  the  House  of  Lords  for  the  king's 
being  tried  as  a  traitor.  The  House  of  Lords,  then  sixteen  in 
number,  to  a  man  rejected  it.  Thereupon,  the  Commons  made 
an  ordinance  of  their  own,  that  they  were  the  supreme  govern- 
ment of  the  country,  and  would  bring  the  king  to  trial. 

The  king  had  been  taken  for  security  to  a  place  called 
Hurst  Castle, — a  lonely  house  on  a  rock  in  the  sea,  connected 
with  the  coast  of  Hampshire  by  a  rough  road  two  miles  long  at 
low  water.  Thence  he  was  ordered  to  be  removed  to  Wind- 
sor ;  thence,  after  being  but  rudely  used  there,  and  having 
none  but  soldiers  to  wait  upon  him  at  table,  he  was  brought  up 
to  St.  James's  Palace,  in  London,  and  told  that  his  trial  was 
appointed  for  next  day. 

On  Saturday,  the  20th  of  January,  1649,  ^^is  memorable 
trial  began.  The  House  of  Commons  had  settled  that  a  hun- 
dred and  thirty-five  persons  should  form  the  court  \  and  these 
were  taken  from  the  House  itself,  from  among  the  officers  of 
the  army,  and  from  among  the  lawyers  and  citizens.  John 
Bradshaw,  serjeant-at  law,  was  appoin-ted  president.  The  place 
was  Westminster  Hall.  At  the  upper  end,  in  a  red  velvet 
chair,  sat  the  president,  with  his  hat  (lined  with  plates  of  iron 
for  his  protection)  on  his  head.  The  res«^  of  the  court  sat  on 
side  benches,  also  wearing  their  hats.  The  king's  seat  was 
covered  with  velvet,  like  that  of  the  president,  and  was  opposite 
to  it.  He  v/as  brought  from  St.  James's  to  Whitehall,  and 
from  Whitehall  he  came  by  water  to  his  trial. 

When  he  came  in  he  looked  round  very  steadily  on  the 
court,  and  on  the  great  number  of  spectators,  and  then  sat 
down  ;  presently  he  got  up  and  looked  round  again.  On  the 
indictment  "  against  Charles  Stuart,  for  high  treason,"  being 
read,  he  smiled  several  times ;  and  he  denied  the  authority  oi 
the  court,  saying  that  there  could  be  no  parliament  without  a 
House  of  Lords,  and  Uiat  he  saw  no  House  of  Lords  there. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  FIRST. 


315 


Also  that  the  king  ought  to  be  there,  and  that  he  saw  no 
king  in  the  king's  right  place.  Bradshavv  replied,  that  the 
court  was  satisfied  with  his  authority,  and  that  its  author- 
ity was  God's  authority  and  the  kingdom's.  He  then  ad- 
journed the  court  to  the  following  Monday.  On  that  day 
the  trial  was  resumed,  and  went  on  all  the  week.  When  the 
Saturday  came,  as  the  king  passed  forward  to  his  place  in  the 
hall,  some  soldiers  and  others  cried  for  "  justice  !  "  and  execu- 
tion on  him.  That  day,  too,  Bradshaw,  like  an  angry  sultan, 
wore  a  red  robe,  instead  of  the  black  robe  he  had  worn  before. 
The  king  was  sentenced  to  death  that  day.  As  he  went  out, 
one  solitary  soldier  said,  "  God  bless  you,  sir  !  "  For  this  his 
officer  struck  him.  The  king  said  he  thought  the  punishment 
exceeded  the  offence.  The  silver  head  cf  his  walking- stick  had 
fallen  off  while  he  leaned  upon  it,  at  one  time  of  the  trial. 
The  accident  seemed  to  disturb  him,  as  if  he  thought  it  ominous 
of  the  falling  of  his  own  head  ;  and  he  admitted  as  much,  now 
it  was  all  over. 

Being  taken  back  to  Whitehall,  he  sent  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  saying,  that,  as  the  time  of  his  execution  might  be 
nigh,  he  wished  he  might  be  allowed  to  see  his  darling  children. 
It  was  granted.  On  the  Monday  he  was  taken  back  to  St. 
James's  ;  and  his  two  children  then  in  England,  the  Princess 
Elizabeth,  thirteen  years  old,  and  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  nine 
years  old,  were  brought  to  take  leave  of  him,  from  Sion  House, 
near  Brentford.  It  was  a  sad  and  touching  scene,  when  he 
kissed  and  fondled  those  poor  children,  and  made  a  little  pres- 
ent of  two  diamond  seals  to  the  princess,  and  gave  them  tender 
messages  t'^  their  mother  (who  little  deserved  them,  for  she  had 
a  lover  of  her  own  whom  she  married  soon  afterwards),  and 
told  them  that  he  died  "  for  the  laws  and  liberties  of  the  land." 
I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  don't  think  he  did ;  but  I  daresay  he 
believed  so. 

There  were  ambassadors  from  Holland,  that  day,  to  inter- 
cede for  the  unhappy  king,  whom  you  and  I  both  wish  the 
Parliament  had  spared  ;  but  they  got  no  answer.  The  Scot- 
tish commisioners  interceded  too  ;  so  did  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
by  a  letter  in  which  he  offered,  as  the  next  heir  to  the  throne, 
to  accept  any  conditions  from  the  Parliament ;  so  did  the 
queen,  by  letter  likewise,  Fotwithstanding  all,  the  warrant 
for  the  execution  was  this  day  signed.  There  is  a  story,  that 
as  Oliver  Cromwell  went  to  the  table  with  the  pen  in  his  hand 
to  put  his  signature  to  it,  he  drew  his  pen  across  the  face  of 
one  of  the  commissioners,  who  was  standing  near,  and  marked 


3i6  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

it  with  ink.     The  commissioner  had  not  signed  his  own  naU 
yet ;  and  the  story  adds,  tliat,  when  he  came  to  do  it,  he  marked 
Cromwell's  face  with  ink  in  the  same  way. 

The  king  slept  well,  untroubled  by  the  knowledge  that  it 
was  his  last  night  on  earth_,  and  rose  on  the  30th  of  January, 
two  hours  before  day,  and  dressed  himself  carefully.  He  put 
on  two  sliirts,  lest  he  should  tremble  with  the  cold,  and  had 
his  hair  very  carefully  combed.  The  warrant  had  been  directed 
to  three  officers  of  the  army,  —  Colonel  Hacker,  Colonel 
Hunks,  and  Colonel  Phayer.  At  ten  o'clock,  the  first  of  these 
came  to  the  door,  and  said  it  was  time  to  go  to  Whitehall. 
The  king,  who  had  always  been  a  quick  walker,  walked  at  his 
usual  speed  through  the  park,  and  called  out  to  the  guard  with 
his  accustomed  voice  of  command,  "  March  on,  apace  !  "  When 
he  came  to  Whitehall,  he  was  taken  to  his  own  bedroom,  where, 
a  breakfast  was  set  forth.  As  he  had  taken  the  sacrament,  he 
would  eat  nothing  more ;  but  at  about  the  time  when  the 
church-bells  struck  twelve  at  noon  (for  he  had  to  wait,  through 
the  scaffold  not  being  ready),  he  took  the  advice  of  the  good 
Bishop  Juxon  who  was  with  him,  and  ate  a  little  bread,  and 
drank  a  glass  of  claret.  Soon  after  he  had  taken  this  refresh- 
ment, Colonel  Hacker  came  to  the  chamber  with  the  warrant 
in  his  hand,  and  called  for  Charles  Stuart. 

And  then,  through  the  long  gallery  of  Whitehall  Palace, 
which  he  had  often  seen  light  and  gay  and  merry  and  crowded, 
in  very  different  times,  the  fallen  king  passed  along,  until  he 
came  to  the  centre  window  of  the  Banqueting  House  through 
which  he  emerged  upon  the  scaffold,  which  was  hung  with 
black.  He  looked  at  the  two  executioners,  who  were  dressed 
in  black  and  masked ;  he  looked  at  the  troops  of  soldiers  on 
horseback  and  on  foot,  and  all  looked  up  at  him  in  silence  ;  he 
looked  at  the  vast  array  of  spectators,  filling  up  the  view  be- 
yond, and  turning  all  their  faces  upon  him,  he  looked  at  his  old 
Palace  of  St.  James's  ;  and  he  looked  at  the  block.  He  seemed 
a  little  troubled  to  find  that  it  was  so  low,  and  asked,  "  if  there 
v/ere  no  place  higher."  Then  to  those  upon  the  scaffokK  he 
said,  "  that  it  was  the  Parliament  who  had  begun  the  war,  and 
not  he  ;  but  he  hoped  they  might  be  guiltless  too,  as  ill  instru- 
ments had  gone  between  them.  In  one  respect,"  he  said,  "  he 
suffered  justly;  and  that  was  because  he  had  permitted  an  un- 
just sentence  to  be  executed  on  another.  In  this  he  referred 
to  the  Earl  of  Strafford. 

He  was  not  at  all  afraid  to  die  ;  but  he  was  anxious  to  die 
easily.     When  some  one  touched  the  axe  while  he  was  speak- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL. 


3»7 


ing,  he  broke  off  and  called  out,  "  Take  heed  of  the  axe  ;  take 
heed  of  the  axe  !  "  He  also  said  to  Colonel  Hacker,  *'  Take 
care  that  they  do  not  put  me  to  pain."  He  told  the  executioner, 
*'  I  shall  say  but  very  short  prayers,  and  then  thrust  out  my 
hands," — as  the  sign  to  strike. 

He  put  his  hair  up  under  a  white  satin  cap,  which  the  bishop 
had  carried,  and  said,  "  I  have  a  good  cause  and  a  gracious 
God  on  my  side."  The  bishop  told  him  that  he  had  but  one 
stage  more  to  travel  in  this  weary  world,  and  that,  though  it 
was  a  turbulent  and  troublesome  stage,  it  was  a  short  one,  and 
would  carry  him  a  great  way, — all  the  way  from  earth  to  heaven. 
The  king's  last  word,  as  he  gave  his  cloak  and  the  George — 
the  decoration  from  his  breast — to  the  bishop,  was,  "  Remem- 
ber ! "  He  then  kneeled  down,  laid  his  head  on  the  block, 
spread  out  his  hands,  and  was  instantly  killed.  One  universal 
groan  broke  from  the  crowd  ;  and  the  soldiers,  who  had  sat  on 
their  horses  and  stood  in  their  ranks  immovable  as  statues, 
were  of  a  sudden  all  in  motion,  clearing  the  streets. 

Thus,  in  the  forty-ninth  year  of  his  age,  falling  at  the  same 
time  of  his  career  as  Strafford  had  fallen  in  his,  perished 
Charles  the  First.  With  all  my  sorrow  for  him,  I  cannot  agree 
with  him  that  he  died  "  the  martyr  of  the  people  "  ;  for  the 
people  had  been  martyrs  to  him,  and  to  his  ideas  of  a  king's 
rights,  long  before.  Indeed,  I  am  afraid  that  he  was  but  a  bad 
judge  of  martyrs  ;  for  he  had  called  that  infamous  Duke  of 
Buckingham  "  the  Martyr  of  his  Sovereign." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

ENGLAND  UNDER   OLIVER  CROMWELL. 

Before  sunset,  on  the  memorable  day  on  which  King 
Charles  the  First  was  executed,  the  House  of  Commons  passed 
an  act  declaring  it  treason  in  any  one  to  proclaim  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  or  anybody  else,  King  of  England.  Soon  afterwards,  it 
declared  that  the  House  of  Lords  was  useless  and  dangerous, 
and  ought  to  be  abolished;  and  directed  that  the  late  king's 
statue  should  be  taken  down  from  the  Royal  Exchange  in  the 
city,  and  other  public  places.  Having  laid  hold  of  some  famous 
royalists  who  had  escaped  from  prison,  and  having  beheaded 


3i8  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  Lord  Holland,  and  Lord  Capel,  in 
Palace  Yard  (all  of  whom  died  very  courageously),  they  then 
appointed  a  council  of  state  to  govern  the  country.  It  con- 
sisted of  forty-one  members,  of  whom  five  were  peers.  Brad- 
shaw  was  made  president.  The  House  of  Commons  also 
readmitted  members  who  had  opposed  the  king's  death,  and 
made  up  its  members  to  admit  about  a  hundred  and  fifty. 

But  it  still  had  an  army  of  more  than  forty  thousand  men 
to  deal  with,  and  a  very  hard  task  it  was  to  manage  them.  Be- 
fore the  king's  execution,  the  army  had  appointed  some  of  its 
officers  to  remonstrate  between  them  and  the  Parliament ;  and 
now  the  common  soldiers  began  to  take  that  office  upon  them- 
selves. The  regiments  under  orders  for  Ireland  mutinied ;  one 
troop  of  horse  in  the  city  of  London  seized  their  own  flag,  and 
refused  to  obey  orders.  For  this  the  ringleader  was  shot, 
which  did  not  mend  the  matter ;  for  both  his  comrades  and  the 
people  made  a  public  funeral  for  him,  and  accompanied  the 
body  to  the  grave  with  sound  of  trumpets,  and  with  a  gloomy 
procession  of  persons  carrying  bundles  of  rosemary  steeped  in 
blood.  Oliver  was  the  only  man  to  deal  with  such  difiiculties 
as  these ;  and  he  soon  cut  them  short  by  bursting  at  midnight 
into  the  town  of  Burford,  near  Salisbury,  were  the  mutineers 
were  sheltered,  taking  four  hundred  of  them  prisoners,  and 
shooting  a  number  of  them  by  sentence  of  court-martial.  The 
soldiers  soon  found,  as  all  men  did,  that  Oliver  was  not  a  man 
to  be  trifled  with.     And  there  was  an  end  of  the  mutiny. 

The  Scottish  Parliament  did  not  know  Oliver  yet,  so,  on 
hearing  of  the  king's  execution,  it  proclaimed  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  king  Charles  the  Second,  on  condition  of  his  respecting 
the  solemn  League  and  Covenant.  Charles  was  abroad  at  that 
time,  and  so  was  Montrose,  from  whose  help  he  had  hopes 
enough  to  keep  him  holding  on  and  off  with  commissioners 
from  Scotland,  just  as  his  father  might  have  done.  These 
hopes  were  soon  at  an  end  ;  for  Montrose,  having  raised  a  few 
hundred  exiles  in  Germany,  and  landed  with  them  in  Scotland, 
found  that  the  people  there,  instead  of  joining  him,  deserted 
the  country  at  his  approach.  He  was  soon  taken  prisoner,  and 
carried  to  Edinburgh.  There  he  was  received  with  every  pos- 
sible insult,  and  carried  to  prison  in  a  cart,  his  officers  going 
two  and  two  before  him.  He  was  sentenced  by  the  pariiament 
to  be  hanged  on  a  gallows  thirty  feet  high,  to  have  his  head  set 
on  a  spike  in  Edinburgh,  and  his  limbs  distributed  in  other 
places,  according  to  the  old  barbarous  manner.  He  said  he 
had  always  acted  under  the  royal  orders,  and  only  wished  he 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL. 


319 


had  limbs  enough  to  be  distributed  through  Christendom,  that 
it  might  be  the  more  widely  known  how  loyal  he  had  been. 
He  went  to  the  scaffold  in  a  bright  and  brilliant  dress,  and 
made  a  bold  end  at  thirty-eight  years  of  age.  The  breath  was 
scarcely  out  of  his  body  when  Charles  abandoned  his  memory, 
and  denied  that  he  liad  ever  given  him  orders  to  rise  in  his  be- 
half.    O,  the  family  failing  was  strong  in  that  Charles  then ! 

Oliver  had  been  appointed  by  the  Parliament  to  command 
the  army  in  Ireland,  where  he  took  a  terrible  vengeance  for  the 
sanguinary  rebellion,  and  made  tremendous  havoc,  particularly 
in  the  siege  of  Drogheda,  v/liere  no  quarter  was  given,  and 
where  he  found  at  least  a  thousand  of  the  inhabitants  shut  up 
together  in  the  great  church,  every  one  of  whom  was  killed  by 
his  soldiers,  usually  known  as  Oliver's  Ironsides.  There  were 
numbers  of  friars  and  priests  among  them  ;  and  Oliver  gruffly 
wrote  home  in  his  despatch  that  these  were  "  knocked  on  the 
head  "  like  the  rest. 

But  Charles  having  got  over  to  Scotland,  where  the  men  of 
the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  led  him  a  prodigiously  dull 
life,  and  made  him  very  weary  with  long  sermons  and  grim 
Sundays,  the  Parliament  called  the  redoubtable  Oliver  home  to 
knock  the  Scottish  men  on  the  head  for  setting  up  that  prince. 
Oliver  left  his  son-in-law,  Ireton,  as  general  in  Ireland,  in  his 
stead  (he  died  there  afterwards),  and  he  imitated  the  example  of 
his  father-in-law  with  such  good  will,  that  he  brought  the  country 
to  subjection,  and  laid  it  at  the  feet  of  the  Parliament.  In  the 
end,  they  passed  an  act  for  the  settlement  of  Ireland,  generally 
pardoning  all  the  common  people,  but  exempting  from  this  grace 
such  of  the  wealthier  sort  as  had  been  concerned  in  the  rebellion, 
or  in  any  killing  of  Protestants,  or  who  refused  to  lay  down  their 
arms.  Great  numbers  of  Irish  were  got  out  of  the  country  to 
serve  under  Catholic  powers  abroad  ;  and  a  quantity  of  land 
was  declared  to  have  been  forfeited  by  past  offences,  and  was 
given  to  people  who  had  lent  money  to  the  Parliament  early  in 
the  war.  These  were  sweeping  measures  ;  but  if  Oliver  Crom- 
well had  his  own  way  fully,  and  had  stayed  in  Ireland,  he 
would  have  done  more  yet. 

However,  as  I  have  said,  the  Parliament  wanted  Oliver  for 
Scotland  ;  so  home  Oliver  came,  and  was  made  commander  of 
all  the  forces  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England,  and  in  three 
days  away  he  went  with  sixteen  thousand  soldiers  to  fight  the 
Scottish  men.  Now,  the  Scottish  men  being  then — as  you  will 
generally  find  them  now — mighty  cautious,  reflected  that  the 
troops  they  had  were  not  used  to  war  like  the  Ironsides,  and 


320  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

vvoulA  jDC  beaten  in  an  open  fight.  Therefore  they  said,  "  If 
we  lie  quiet  in  our  trenches  in  Edinburgh  here,  and  if  all  the 
farmers  came  into  the  town  and  desert  the  country,  the  Iron- 
sides will  be  driven  out  by  iron  hunger,  and  be  forced  to  go 
away."  This  was,  no  doubt,  the  wisest  plan  ;  but  as  the  Scot- 
tish clergy  would  interfere  with  what  they  knew  nothing  about, 
and  would  perpetually  preach  long  sermons,  exhorting  the  sol- 
diers to  come  out  and  fight,  the  soldiers  got  it  in  their  heads 
that  they  absolutely  must  come  out  and  fight.  Accordingly,  in 
an  evil  hour  for  themselves,  they  came  out  of  their  safe  position, 
Oliver  fell  upon  them  instantly,  and  killed  three  thousand,  and 
took  ten  thousand  prisoners. 

To  gratify  the  Scottish  Parliament,  and  preserve  their  favor, 
Charles  had  signed  a  declaration  they  laid  before  him  reproach' 
ing  the  memory  of  his  father  and  mother,  and  representing  him- 
self as  a  most  religious  prince,  to  whom  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant  was  as  dear  as  life.  He  meant  no  sort  of  truth  in 
this,  and  soon  afterwards  galloped  away  on  horseback  to  join 
some  tiresome  Highland  friends,  who  were  always  flourishing 
dirks  and  broadswords.  He  was  overtaken,  and  induced  to  re- 
turn ;  but  this  attempt,  which  was  called  *'  The  Start,"  did  him 
just  so  much  service,  that  they  did  not  preach  quite  such  long 
sermons  at  him  afterwards  as  they  had  done  before. 

On  the  I  St  of  January,  1651,  the  Scottish  people  crowned 
him  at  Scone.  He  immediately  took  the  chief  command  of  an 
army  of  twenty  thousand  men,  and  marched  to  Stirling.  His 
hopes  were  heightened,  I  daresay,  by  the  redoubtable  Oliver 
being  ill  of  an  ague,  but  Oliver  scrambled  out  of  bed  in  no 
time,  and  went  to  work  with  such  energy  that  he  got  behind 
the  royalist  army,  and  cut  it  off  from  all  communication  with 
Scotland.  There  was  nothing  for  it  then  but  to  go  on  to  Eng- 
land ;  so  it  went  on  as  far  as  Worcester,  where  the  mayor  and 
some  of  the  gentry  proclaimed  King  Charles  the  Second  straight- 
way. His  proclamation,  however,  was  of  little  use  to  him ;  for 
very  few  royalists  appeared  ;  and,  on  the  very  same  day,  two 
people  were  publicly  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill  for  espousing  his 
cause.  Up  came  Oliver  to  Worcester  too,  at  double-quick 
speed  ;  and  he  and  his  Ironsides  so  laid  about  them  in  the 
great  battle  which  was  fought  there,  that  they  completely  beat 
the  Scottish  men,  and  destroyed  the  royalist  army,  though  the 
Scottish  men  fought  so  gallantly  that  it  took  five  hours  to  do. 

The  escape  of  Charles  after  this  battle  of  Worcester  did  him 

pod  service  long  afterwards  ;  for  it  induced  many  of  the  gener- 

V"'  English  people  to  take  a  romantic  interest  in  him,  and  to 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL. 


32  T 


think  much  better  of  him  than  he  ever  deserved.  He  fled  in 
the  night,  with  not  more  than  sixty  followers,  to  the  house  of  a 
Catholic  lady  in  Staffordshire.  There,  for  his  greater  safety, 
the  whole  sixty  left  him.  He  cropped  his  hair,  stained  his  face 
and  hands  brown  as  if  they  were  sunburnt,  put  on  the  clothes 
of  a  laboring  countryman,  and  went  out  in  the  morning  with  his 
axe  in  his  hand,  accompanied  by  four  wood-cutters  who  were 
brothers,  and  another  man  who  was  their  brother-in-law.  These 
good  fellows  made  a  bed  for  him  under  a  tree,  as  the  weather 
was  very  bad  ;  and  the  wife  of  one  of  thera  brought  him  food  to 
eat ;  and  the  old  mother  of  the  four  brothers  came  and  fell 
down  on  her  knees  before  him  in  the  wood,  and  than^ced  God 
that  her  sons  were  engaged  in  saving  his  life.  At  night,  he 
came  out  of  the  forest,  and  went  on  to  another  house  which  was 
near  the  river  Severn,  with  the  intention  of  passing  into  Wales  ; 
but  the  place  swarmed  with  soldiers,  and  the  bridges  were 
guarded,  and  all  the  boats  were  made  fast.  So,  after  lying  in 
a  hayloft  covered  over  with  hay  some  time,  he  came  out  of  his 
place,  attended  by  Colonel  Careless,  a  Catholic  gentleman  who 
had  met  him  there,  and  with  whom  he  lay  hid,  all  next  day,  up 
in  the  shady  branches  of  a  fine  old  oak.  It  was  lucky  for  the 
king  that  it  was  September  time,  and  that  the  leaves  had  not 
begun  to  fall,  since  he  and  the  colonel,  perched  up  in  this  tree, 
could  catch  glimpses  of  the  soldiers  riding  about  below,  and 
could  hear  the  crash  in  the  wood  as  they  went  about  beating 
the  boughs. 

After  this,  he  walked  and  walked  until  his  feet  were  all 
blistered  ;  and  having  been  concealed  all  one  day  in  a  house, 
which  was  searched  by  the  troopers  while  he  was  there,  went 
with  Lord  Wilmot,  another  of  his  good  friends,  to  a  place  called 
Bentley,  where  one  Miss  Lane,  a  Protestant  lady  had  obtained 
a  pass  to  be  allowed  to  ride  through  the  guards  to  see  a  relation 
of  hers  near  Bristol.  Disguised  as  a  servant,  he  rode  in  the 
saddle  before  this  young  lady  to  the  house  of  Sir  John  Winter, 
while  Lord  Wilmot  rode  there  boldly,  like  a  plain  country  gen- 
tleman, with  dogs  at  his  heels.  It  happened  that  Sir  John 
Winter's  butler  had  been  servant  in  Richmond  Palace,  and 
knew  Charles  the  moment  he  set  eyes  upon  him  ;  but  the  butler 
was  faithful  and  kept  the  secret.  As  no  ship  could  be  found 
to  carry  him  abroad,  it  was  planned  that  he  should  go — still 
travelling  with  Miss  Lane  as  her  servant — to  another  house,  at 
Trent,  near  Sherborne  in  Dorsetshire  ;  and  then  Miss  Lane 
and  her  cousin,  Mr.  Lascelles,  who  had  gone  on  horseback  be- 
side her  all  the  way,  went  home,     I  hope  Miss  Lane  was  going 

%\ 


322 


A  CHILD'S  HIS  TOR  Y  OF  ENGLAND. 


to  marry  that  cousin  ;  for  I  am  sure  she  must  have  been  a  brave, 
kind  girl.  If  I  had  been  that  cousin  1  should  certainly  have 
loved  Miss  Lane. 

When  Charles,  lonely  for  ihc  loss  of  Miss  Lane,  was  safe 
at  Trent,  a  ship  was  hired  at  Lyme,  the  mn-ter  of  which  en- 
gaged to  i:ike  two  gentlemen  to  France.  In  tiie  evening  ofthe 
same  clay,  the  king — nowridingas  servant  before  another  youiv; 
lady — set  off  for  a  public-house  at  a  place  called  Charmouih 
where  the  captain  of  the  vessel  was  to  take  him  on  board.  Eut 
the  captain's  wife,  being  afraid  of  her  husband  getting  into 
trouble,  locked  him  up  and  would  not  let  him  sail.  Then  tlicy 
went  aw-ay  to  Bridport ;  and,  coming  to  the  inn  there,  found 
the  stable-yard  full  of  soldiers  who  were  on  the  look-out  for 
Charles,  and  who  talked  about  him  while  they  drank.  He  had 
such  presence  of  mind,  that  he  led  the  horses  of  his  party 
through  the  yard  as  any  other  servant  might  have  done,  and 
said,  "  Come  out  of  the  way,  you  soldiers  ;  let  us  have  room 
to  pass  here  !  "  As  he  went  along,  he  met  a  half-tipsy  ostler, 
who  rubbed  his  eyes  and  said  to  him,  "  Why,  I  was  formerly 
servant  to  Mr.  Potter  at  Exeter,  and  surely  I  have  sometimes 
seen  you  there,  young  man  "i  "  He  certainly  had  for  Charles 
had  lodged  there.  His  ready  answer  was,  "  Ah,  I  did  live  with 
him  once ;  but  I  have  no  time  to  talk  now.  Well  have  a  pot 
of  beer  together  when  I  come  back." 

From  this  dangerous  place  he  returned  to  Trent,  and  lay 
there  concealed  several  days.  Then  he  escaped  to  Heale,  near 
Salisbury ;  wdiere,  in  the  house  of  a  widow  lady,  he  was  hidden 
five  days,  until  the  master  of  a  collier  lying  off  Shoreham,  in 
Sussex,  undertook  to  convey  a  "  gentleman  "  to  France.  On 
the  night  of  the  15th  of  October,  accompanied  by  two  colonels 
and  a  merchant,  the  king  rode  to  Brighton,  then  a  little  fishing- 
village,  to  give  the  captain  of  the  ship  a  supper  before  going  on 
board  ;  but  so  many  people  knew  him,  that  this  captain  knew 
him  too,  and  not  only  he  but  the  landlord  and  landlady  also. 
Before  he  went  away  the  landlord  came  behind  his  chair,  kissed 
his  hand,  and  said  he  hoped  to  live  to  be  a  lord  and  to  see  his 
wife  a  lady ;  at  which  Charles  laughed.  They  had  had  a  good 
supper  by  this  time,  and  plenty  of  smoking  and  drinking,  at 
which  the  king  was  a  first-rate  hand  j  so  the  captain  assured 
him  that  he  would  stand  by  him,  and  he  did.  It  was  agreed 
that  the  captain  should  pretend  to  sail  to  Deal  and  that  Charles 
should  address  the  sailors,  and  say  he  was  a  gentleman  in  debt, 
who  was  running  away  from  his  creditors,  and  that  he  hoped 
they  would  join  him  in  persuading  the  captain  to  put  him  ashore 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL. 


323 


in  ifrance.  As  the  king  acted  his  part  very  well  indeed,  and 
gave  the  sailors  twenty  shillings  to  drink,  they  begged  the  cap 
tain  to  do  what  such  a  worthy  gentleman  asked.  He  pretended 
to  yield  to  their  entreaties,  and  the  king  got  safe  to  Normandy. 

Ireland  being  now  subdued,  and  Scotland  kept  quiet  by 
plenty  of  forts  and  soldiers  put  there  by  Oliver,  the  Parliament 
would  have  gone  on  quietly  enough,  as  far  as  fighting  with  any 
foreign  enemy  went,  but  for  getting  into  trouble  with  the  Dutch 
who,  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1651,  sent  a  fleet  mto  the  Downs 
under  their  Admiral  Van  Tromp,  to  call  upon  the  bold  English 
Admiral  Blake  (who  was  there  with  half  as  many  ships  as  the 
Dutch)  to  strike  his  flag.  Blake  fired  a  raging  broadside  in 
stead,  and  beat  off  Van  Tromp  ;  who,  in  the  autumn,  came  back 
again  with  seventy  ships  and  challenged  the  bold  Blake — who 
still  was  only  half  as  strong — to  fight  him.  Blake  fought  him 
all  day ;  but  findmg  that  the  Dutch  were  too  many  for  him,  got 
quietly  off  at  night.  What  does  Van  Tromp  upon  this,  but 
goes  cruising  and  boasting  about  the  Channel,  between  the 
North  Foreland  and  the  Isle  of  Wight,  with  a  great  Dutch 
broom  tied  to  his  masthead,  as  a  sign  that  he  could  and  would 
sweep  the  English  off  the  sea  !  Within  three  months  Blake 
lowered  his  tone  though,  and  his  broom  too  ;  for  he  and  two 
other  bold  commanders,  Dean  and  Monk,  fought  him  three 
whole  days,  took  twenty-three  of  his  ships,  shivered  his  broom 
to  pieces,  and  settled  his  business. 

Things  were  no  sooner  quiet  again,  than  the  army  began  to 
complam  to  the  Parliament  that  they  were  not  governing  the 
nation  properly,  and  to  hint  that  they  thought  they  could  do  it 
better  themselves.  Oliver,  who  had  now  made  up  his  mind  to 
be  the  head  of  the  state,  or  nothing  at  all,  supported  them  in 
this,  and  called  a  meeting  of  officers  and  his  own  parliamentary 
friends,  at  his  lodgings  in  Whitehall,  to  consider  the  best  way 
of  getting  rid  of  the  Parliament.  It  had  now  lasted  just  as 
many  years  as  the  king's  unbridled  power  had  lasted,  before  it 
came  into  existence.  The  end  of  the  deliberation  was,  that 
Ohver  went  down  to  the  House  in  his  usual  plain  black  dress, 
with  his  usual  gray  worsted  stockings,  but  with  an  unusual  party 
of  soldiers  behind  him.  These  last  he  left  in  the  lobby,  and 
then  went  in  and  sat  down.  Presently  he  got  up,  made  the 
Parliament  a  speech,  told  them  that  the  Lord  had  done  with  them, 
stamped  his  foot,  and  said,  "  You  are  no  Parliament.  Bring 
them  in  ;  bring  them  in  !  "  At  this  signal  the  door  flew  open, 
and  the  soldiers  appeared.  "  This  is  not  honest,"  said  Sir 
Harry  Vane,  one  of  the  members.     "  Sir  Harry  Vane  !  "  cried 


324 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


Cromwell  ;  "  O  Sir  Harry  Vane  \  the  Lord  deliver  me  from  Sir 
Harry  Vane  ! ''  Then  he  pointed  out  members  one  by  one,  and 
said  this  man  was  a  drunkard,  and  that  man  a  dissipated  fellow, 
and  that  man  a  liar,  and  so  on.  Then  he  caused  the  speaker 
to  be  walked  out  of  his  chair,  told  the  guard  to  clear  the  House 
called  the  mace  upon  the  table, — which  is  a  sign  that  the  House 
is  sitting, — "  a  fool's  bauble,"  and  said,  *'  Here,  carry  it  away  !  " 
Being  obeyed  in  all  these  orders,  he  quietly  locked  the  door, 
put  the  key  in  his  pocket,  walked  back  to  Whitehall  again, 
and  told  his  friends,  who  were  still  assembled  there,  what  he 
had  done. 

They  formed  a  new  Council  of  State  after  this  extraordinary 
proceeding,  and  got  a  new  Parliament  together  in  their  own 
way ;  which  Oliver  himself  opened  in  a  sort  of  sermon,  and 
which  he  said  was  the  beginning  of  a  perfect  heaven  upon 
earth.  In  this  Parliament  there  sat  a  well-known  leather-seller, 
who  had  taken  the  singular  name  of  Praise  God  Barebones,  and 
from  whom  it  was  called,  for  a  joke,  Barebones'  Parliament, 
though  its  general  name  was  the  Little  Parliament.  As  it  soon 
appeared  that  it  was  not  going  to  put  Oliver  in  the  first  place, 
it  turned  out  to  be  not  all  like  the  beginning  of  heaven  upon 
earth,  and  Oliver  said  it  really  was  not  to  be  borne  with.  So 
he  cleared  off  that  Parliament  in  much  the  same  way  as  he  had 
disposed  of  the  other  ;  and  then  the  council  of  officers  decided 
that  he  must  be  made  the  supreme  authority  of  the  kingdom, 
under  the  title  of  the  Lord  Protector  of  the  Commonwealth. 

So,  on  the  i6th  of  December,  1653,  a  great  procession  was 
formed  at  Oliver's  door  \  and  he  came  out  in  a  black  velvet 
suit  and  a  big  pair  of  boots,  and  got  into  his  coach,  and  went 
down  to  Westminster,  attended  by  the  judges,  and  the  lord 
mayor,  and  the  aldermen,  and  all  the  other  great  and  wonder- 
ful personages  of  the  country.  There  in  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
he  publicly  accepted  the  office  of  Lord  Protector.  Then  he 
was  sworn,  and  the  city  sword  was  handed  to  him,  and  the  seal 
was  handed  to  him,  and  all  the  other  things  were  handed  to 
him  which  are  usually  handed  to  the  kings  and  queens  on  state 
occasions.  When  Oliver  had  handed  them  all  back,  be  vvas 
quite  made,  and  completely  finished  off  as  Lord  Protector  j 
and  several  of  the  Ironsides  preached  about  it  at  great  length, 
all  the  evening. 

Second  Part. 

Oliver  Cromwell, — whom  the  people  long  called  Old  Nail, — 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL.  325 

in  accepting  the  office  of  Protector,  had  bound  himself  by  i 
certain  paper  which  was  handed  to  him,  called  "  The  Instru- 
ment," to  summon  a  parliament,  consisting  of  between  four  and 
five  hundred  members,  in  the  election  of  which  neither  the 
Royalists  nor  the  Catholics  were  to  have  any  share.  He  had 
also  pledged  himself  that  this  parliament  should  not  be  dis- 
solved without  its  own  consent  until  it  had  sat  five  months. 

When  this  parliament  met,  Oliver  made  a  speech  to  them  of 
three  hours  long,  very  wisely  advising  them  what  to  do  for  the 
credit  and  happiness  of  the  country.  To  keep  down  the  more 
violent  members,  he  required  them  to  sign  a  recognition  of 
what  they  were  forbidden  by  "  The  Instrument  "  to  do  ;  which 
was  chiefly  to  take  the  power  from  one  single  person  at  the 
head  of  the  state,  or  to  command  the  army.  Then  he  dismissed 
them  to  go  to  work.  With  his  usual  vigor  and  resolution  he 
went  to  work  himself  with  some  frantic-preachers,  who  were 
rather  overdoing  their  sermons  in  calling  him  a  villain  and  a 
tyrant,  by  shutting  up  their  chapels,  and  sending  a  few  of  them 
off  to  prison. 

There  was  not  at  that  time  in  England,  or  anywhere  else,  a 
man  so  able  to  govern  the  country  as  Oliver  Cromwell. 
Although  he  ruled  with  a  strong  hand,  and  levied  a  very  heavy 
tax  on  the  Royalists  (but  not  until  they  had  plotted  against  his 
life),  he  ruled  wisely,  and  as  the  times  required.  He  caused 
England  to  be  so  respected  abroad,  that  I  wish  some  lords  and 
gentleman,  who  have  governed  It  under  kings  and  queens  in 
later  days,  would  have  taken  a  leaf  out  of  Oliver  Cromwell's 
book.  He  sent  bold  Admiral  Blake  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea, 
to  make  the  Duke  of  Tuscany  pay  sixty  thousand  pounds  for 
Injuries  he  had  done  to  British  subjects,  and  spoliation  he  had 
committed  on  English  merchants.  He  further  despatched  him 
and  his  fleet  to  Algiers,  Tunis,  and  Tripoli,  to  have  every  Eng- 
lish ship  and  every  Englishman  delivered  up  to  him  that  had 
been  taken  by  pirates  in  those  parts.  All  this  was  gloriously 
done  ;  and  it  began  to  be  thoroughly  well  known,  all  over  the 
world,  that  England  was  governed  by  a  man  in  earnest,  who 
would  not  allow  the  English  name  to  be  insulted  or  slighted 
anywhere. 

These  were  not  all  his  foreign  triumphs.  He  sent  a  fleet 
to  sea  against  the  Dutch  ;  and  the  two  powers,  each  with  one 
hundred  ships  upon  its  side,  met  in  the  English  Channel  off 
the  North  Foreland,  where  the  fight  lasted  all  day  long.  Dean 
was  killed  in  this  fight;  but  Monk,  who  commanded  in  the 
same  ship  with  him,  threw  his  cloak  over  his  body,  that  the 


326  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

sailors  might  not  know  of  his  death,  and  be  disheartened 
Nor  were  they.  The  English  broadsides  so  exceedingly  aston 
ished  the  Dutch,  that  they  sheared  off  at  last,  though  tha 
redoubtable  Van  Tromp  fired  upon  them  with  his  own  guna 
for  deserting  their  flag.  Soon  afterwards  the  two  fleets  engaged 
again,  off  the  coast  of  Holland.  There  the  valiant  Van  Tromp 
was  shot  through  the  heart,  and  the  Dutch  gave  in.  and  peace 
was  made. 

Further  than  this,  Oliver  resolved  not  to  bear  the  domineer- 
ing and  bigoted  conduct  of  Spain,  which  country  not  only 
claimed  a  right  to  all  the  gold  and  silver  that  could  be  found 
in  South  America,  and  treated  the  ships  of  all  other  countries 
who  visited  those  regions  as  pirates,  but  put  English  subjects 
into  the  horrible  Spanish  prisons  of  the  Inquisition.  So  Oliver 
told  the  Spanish  ambassador  that  English  ships  must  be  free 
to  go  wherever  they  would,  and  that  English  merchants  must 
not  be  thrown  into  those  same  dungeons  ;  no,  not  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  all  the  priests  in  Spain.  To  this  the  Spanish  ambassa- 
dor replied,  that  the  gold  and  silver  country,  and  the  Holy 
Inquisition,  were  his  king's  two  eyes,  neither  of  which  he  could 
submit  to  have  put  out.  Very  well,  said  Oliver,  then  he  was 
afraid  he  (Oliver)  must  damage  those  two  eyes  directly. 

So  another  fleet  was  despatched  under  two  commanders, 
Penn  and  Venables,  for  Hispaniola ;  where,  however,  the 
Spaniards  got  the  better  of  the  fight.  Consequently,  the  fleet 
came  home  again,  after  taking  Jamaica  on  the  way.  Oliver, 
indignant  with  the  two  commanders  who  had  not  done  what 
bold  Admiral  Blake  would  have  done,  clapped  them  both  into 
prison,  declared  war  against  Spain,  and  made  a  treaty  with 
France,  in  virtue  of  which  it  was  to  shelter  the  king  and  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  no  longer.  Then  he  sent  a  fleet 
abroad  under  bold  Admiral  Blake,  which  brought  the  King  of 
Portugal  to  his  senses, — just  to  keep  its  hand  in — and  then 
engaged  a  Spanish  fleet,  sunk  four  great  ships,  and  took  two 
more,  laden  with  silver  to  the  value  of  two  millions  of  pounds  ; 
which  dazzling  prize  was  brought  from  Portsmouth  to  London 
in  wagons,  with  the  populace  of  all  the  towns  and  villages 
through  which  the  wagons  passed,  shouting  with  all  their  might. 
After  this  victory,  bold  Admiral  Blake  sailed  away  to  the 
port  of  Santa  Cruz  to  cut  off  the  Spanish  treasure-ships  coming 
from  Mexico.  There  he  found  them,  ten  in  number,  with 
seven  others  to  take  care  of  them,  and  a  big  castle,  and  seven 
batteries,  all  roaring  and  blazing  away  at  him  with  great  guns. 
Blake  cared  no  more  for  great  guns  than  for  pop-guns, — no 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL, 


327 


more  for  their  hot  iron  balls  than  for  snowballs.  He  dashed 
into  the  harbor,  captured  and  burnt  every  one  of  the  ships, 
and  can^e  sailing  out  again  triumphantly,  with  the  victorious 
English  flag  flying  at  his  mast-head.  This  was  the  last  triumph 
of  this  great  commander,  who  had  sailed  and  fought  until  he 
was  quite  worn  out.  He  died  as  his  successful  ship  was  com- 
ing into  Plymouth  Harbor  amidst  the  joyful  acclamations  of 
the  people,  and  was  buried  in  state  in  Westminster  Abbey, — 
not  to  lie  there  long. 

Over  and  over  all  this,  Oliver  found  that  the  Vaudois,  or 
Protestant  people  of  the  valleys  of  Lucerne,  were  insolently 
treated  by  the  Catholic  powers,  and  were  even  put  to  death  for 
their  religion,  in  an  audacious  and  bloody  manner.  Instantly 
he  informed  those  powers  that  this  was  a  thing  which  Protest- 
ant Esgland  would  not  allow  ;  and  he  speedily  carried  his 
point,  through  the  might  of  his  great  name,  and  established 
their  right  to  w^orship  God  in  peace  after  their  own  harmless 
manner. 

Lastly,  his  English  army  won  such  admiration  in  fighting 
with  the  French  against  the  Spaniards,  that,  after  they  had  as- 
saulted the  town  of  Dunkirk  together,  the  French  king  in  per- 
son gave  it  up  to  the  English,  that  it  might  be  a  token  to  them 
of  their  might  and  valor. 

There  were  plots  enough  against  Oliver  among  the  frantic 
religionists  (who  called  themselves  Fifth  Monarchy  Men),  and 
among  the  disappointed  republicans.  He  had  a  difficult  game 
to  play  ;  for  the  royalists  were  always  ready  to  side  with  either 
part}^  against  him.  The  "  King  over  the  water,"  too,  as  Charles 
was  called,  had  no  scruples  about  plotting  with  any  one  against 
his  life  ;  although  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  he  would 
willingly  have  married  one  of  his  daughters,  if  Oliver  would 
have  had  such  a  son-in-law.  There  was  a  certain  Colonel 
Saxbyof  the  army,  once  a  great  supporter  of  Oliver's,  but  now 
turned  against  him,  who  was  a  grievous  trouble  to  him  through 
all  this  part  of  his  career  ;  and  who  came  and  went  between 
the  discontented  in  England  and  Spain,  and  Charles,  who  put 
himself  in  alliance  with  Spain  on  being  thrown  off  by  France. 
This  man  died  in  prison  at  last ;  but  not  until  there  had  been 
very  serious  plots  between  the  royalists  and  republicans,  and 
an  actual  rising  of  them  in  England,  when  they  burst  into  the 
city  of  Salisbury  on  a  Sunday  night,  seized  the  judges  who 
were  going  lo  hold  the  assizes*  there  next  day,  and  would  have 
hanged  them  but  for  the  merciful  objections  of  the  more  tem- 
perate of  their  number.     Oliver  was  so  vigorous  and  shrewd 


328 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


that  he  soon  put  this  revolt  down,  as  he  did  most  other  con- 
spiracies ;  and  it  was  well  for  one  of  its  chief  managers — that 
same  Lord  Wilmot  who  had  assisted  in  Charles's  flight,  and 
was  now  Earl  of  Rochester — that  he  made  his  escape.  Oliver 
seemed  to  have  eyes  and  ears  everywhere,  and  secured  such 
sources  of  information  as  his  enemies  little  dreamed  of.  There 
was  a  chosen  body  of  six  persons,  called  the  Sealed  Knot,  who 
were  in  the  closest  and  most  secret  confidence  of  Charles. 
One  of  the  foremost  of  these  very  men,  a  Sir  Richard  Willis, 
reported  to  Oliver  everything  that  passed  among  them,  and  had 
two  hundred  a  year  for  it. 

Miles  Syndarcomb,  also  of  the  old  army,  was  another  con- 
spirator against  the  Protector.  He,  and  a  man  named  Cecil, 
bribed  one  of  his  life-guards  to  let  them  have  good  notice  when 
he  was  going  out, — intending  to  shoot  him  from  a  window.  But 
owing  either  to  his  caution  or  his  good  fortune,  they  could  never 
get  an  aim  at  him.  Disappointed  in  this  design,  they  got  into 
the  chapel  in  Whitehall,  with  a  basketful  of  combustibles, which 
were  to  explode,  by  means  of  a  slow  match,  in  six  hours ;  then, 
in  the  noise  and  confusion  of  the  fire,  they  hoped  to  kill  Oliver. 
But  the  life-guardsman  himself  disclosed  this  plot ;  and  they 
were  seized,  and  Miles  died  (or  killed  himself  in  prison)  a  little 
while  before  he  was  ordered  for  execution.  A  few  such  plotters 
Oliver  caused  to  be  beheaded,  a  few  more  to  be  hanged,  and 
many  more,  including  those  who  rose  -in  arms  against  him,  to 
be  sent  as  slaves  to  the  West  Indies.  If  he  were  rigid,  he  was 
impartial  too,  in  asserting  the  laws  of  England.  When  a  Por- 
tuguese nobleman,  the  brother  of  the  Portuguese  ambassador, 
killed  a  London  citizen  in  mistake  for  another  man  with  whom 
he  had  had  a  quarrel,  Oliver  caused  him  to  be  tried  before  a 
jury  of  Englishmen  and  foreigners,  and  had  him  executed  in 
spite  of  the  entreaties  of  all  the  ambassadors  in  London. 

One  of  Oliver's  own  friends,  the  Duke  of  Oldenburgh,  in 
sending  him  a  present  of  six  fine  coach-horses,  was  very  near 
doing  more  to  please  the  royalists  than  all  the  plotters  put  to- 
gether. One  day,  Oliver  went  with  his  coach,  drawn  by  these 
six  horses,  into  Hyde  Park,  to  dine  with  his  secretary  and  some 
of  his  other  gentlemen  under  the  trees  there.  After  dinner, 
being  merry,  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  put  his  friends  inside 
and  to  drive  them  home,  a  postilion  riding  one  of  the  foremost 
horses,  as  the  custom  was.  On  account  of  Oliver's  being  too 
free  with  the  whip,  the  six  fine  horses  went  off  at  a  gallop,  the 
postilion  got  thrown,  and  Oliver  fell  upon  the  coach-pole,  and 
narrowly  escaped  being  shot  by  his  own  pistol,  which  got  en- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL, 


329 


tangled  with  his  clothes  in  the  harness,  and  went  off.  He  was 
dragged  sonie  distance  by  the  foot,  until  his  foot  came  out  of 
the  shoe,  and  then,  he  came  safely  to  the  ground  under  the 
broad  body  of  the  coach,  and  was  very  little  the  worse.  The 
gentlemen  inside  were  only  bruised,  and  the  discontented  peo- 
ple of  all  parties  were  much  disappointed. 

The  rest  of  the  history  of  the  Protectorate  of  Oliver  Crom- 
well is  a  history  of  his  parliament.  His  first  one  not  pleasing 
him  at  all,  he  waited  until  the  five  months  were  out,  and  then 
dissolved  it.  The  next  was  better  suited  to  his  views ;  and 
from  that  he  desired  to  get — if  he  could  with  safety  to  himself 
— the  title  of  king.  He  had  had  this  in  his  mind  some  time  ; 
whether  because  he  thought  that  the  English  people,  being  more 
used  to  the  title,  were  more  likely  to  obey  it,  or  whether  be- 
cause he  really  wished  to  be  a  king  himself,  and  to  leave  the 
succession  to  that  title  in  his  family,  is  far  from  clear.  He  was 
already  as  high,  in  England  and  in  all  the  world,  as  he  would 
ever  be  ;  and  I  doubt  if  he  cared  for  the  mere  name.  However, 
a  paper,  called  the  "  Humble  Petition  and  Advice,"  was  pre- 
sented to  him  by  the  House  of  Commons,  praying  him  to  take 
a  high  title  and  to  appoint  his  successors.  That  he  would  have 
taken  the  title  of  king  there  is  no  doubt,  but  for  the  strong  op- 
position of  the  army.  This  induced  him  to  forbear,  and  to 
assent  only  to  the  other  points  of  the  petition.  Upon  which  oc- 
casion there  was  another  grand  show  in  Westminster  Hall,  when 
the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons  formally  invested  him 
with  a  purple  robe  lined  with  ermine,  and  presented  him  with  a 
splendidly  bound  Bible,  and  put  a  golden  sceptre  in  his  hand. 
The  next  time  the  Parliament  met,  he  called  a  House  of  Lords. 
of  sixty  members,  as  the  petition  gave  him  power  to  do  ;  but  as 
that  Parliament  did  not  please  him  either,  and  would  not  pro- 
ceed to  the  business  of  the  country,  he  jumped  into  a  coach  one 
morning,  took  six  guards  with  him,  and  sent  them  to  the  right- 
about. I  wish  this  had  been  a  warning  to  parliaments  to  avoi-l 
long  speeches,  and  do  more  work. 

It  was  the  month  of  August,  1658,  when  Oliver  Cromwell's 
favorite  daughter,  Elizabeth  Claypole  (who  had  lately  lost  lier 
youngest  son),  lay  very  ill,  and  his  mind  was  greatly  troubled, 
because  he  loved'  her  dearlv.  Another  of  his  daughters  was 
married  to  Lord  Falconbc':  ;.  nr.nther  to  the  grandson  of  the 
Earl  of  Warwick,  and  he  had  made  his  son  Richard  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Upper  House.  He  was  very  kind  and  loving 
to  them  all,  being  a  good  father  and  a  good  husband  ;  but  he 
loved  this  daughter  the  best  of  the  family,  and  went  down  to 


33^ 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


Hampton  Court  to  see  her,  and  could  hardly  be  induced  to  stir 
from  her  sick  room  until  she  died.  Although  his  religion  had 
been  of  a  gloomy  kind,  his  disposition  had  been  alwa3^s  cheer- 
ful. He  had  been  fond  of  music  in  his  home,  and  had  kept 
open  table  once  a  week  for  all  officers  of  the  army  not  below 
the  rank  of  captain,  and  had  always  preserved  in  his  house  a 
quiet,  sensible  dignity.  He  encouraged  men  of  genius  and 
learning,  and  loved  to  have  them  about  him.  Milton  was  one 
of  his  great  friends.  He  was  good-humored,  too,  with  the  no- 
bility, whose  dresses  and  manners  were  very  different  from  his; 
and  to  show  them  what  good  information  he  had,  he  would 
sometimes  jokingly  tell  them,  when  they  were  his  guests,  where 
they  had  last  drunk  the  health  of  the  "  King  over  the  water," 
and  would  recommend  them  to  be  more  private  (if  they  could) 
another  time.  But  he  had  lived  in  busy  times,  had  borne  the 
weight  of  heavy  state  affairs,  and  had  often  gone  in  fear  of  his 
life.  He  was  ill  of  the  gout  and  ague  ;  and  when  the  death  of 
his  beloved  child  came  upon  him  in  addition,  he  sank,  never  to 
raise  his  head  again.  He  told  his  physician,  on  the  24th  of 
August,  that  the  Lord  had  assured  him  that  he  was  not  to  die 
in  that  illness,  and  that  he  would  certainly  get  better.  This 
was  only  his  sick  fancy ;  for  on  the  3d  of  September,  which  was 
the  anniversary  of  the  great  battle  of  Worcester,  and  the  day  of 
the  year  which  he  called  his  fortunate  day,  he  died,  in  the  six- 
tieth year  of  his  age.  He  had  been  delirious,  and  lain  in- 
sensible some  hours,  but  he  had  been  overheard  to  murmur  a 
very  good  prayer  the  day  before.  The  whole  country  lamented 
his  death.  If  you  want  to  know  the  real  worth  of  Oliver  Crom- 
well, and  his  real  services  to  his  country,  you  can  hardly  do 
better  than  compare  England  under  him  with  England  under 
Charles  the  Second. 

He  had  appointed  his  son  Richard  to  succeed  him  ;  and 
after  there  had  been,  at  Somerset  House,  in  the  Strand,  a  lying- 
in-state  more  splendid  than  sensible, — as  all  such  vanities  after 
death  are,  I  think, — Richard  became  Lord  Protector.  He  was 
an  amiable  country  gentleman,  but  had  none  of  his  father's 
great  genius,  and  was  quite  unfit  for  such  a  post  in  such  a  storm 
of  parties.  Richard's  Protectorate,  which  only  lasted  a  year  and 
a  half,  is  a  history  of  quarrels  between  the  officers  of  the  army 
and  the  Parliament,  and  between  the  officers  among  themselves ; 
and  of  a  growing  discontent  among  the  people,  who  had  far  too 
many  long  sermons,  and  far  to  few  amusements,  and  wanted  a 
change.  At  last.  General  Monk  got  the  army  well  into  his  own 
hands,  and  then,  in  pursuance  of  a  secret  plan  he  seems  to  have 


ENGLAND  UNDER  OLIVER  CROMWELL.  331 

entertained  from  the  time  of  Oliver's  death,  declared  for  the 
king's  cause.  He  did  not  do  this  openly  ;  but  in  his  place  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  as  one  of  the  members  for  Devonshire, 
Ltrrongly  advocated  the  proposals  of  one  Sir  John  Greenville, 
who  came  to  the  House  with  a  letter  from  Charles,  dated  from 
Breda,  and  with  whom  he  had  previously  been  in  secret  com- 
munication. There  had  been  plots  and  counterplots,  and  a  re- 
call of  the  last  members  of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  an  end 
of  the  Long  Parliament,  and  risings  of  the  royalists  that  were 
made  too  soon  ;  and  most  men  being  tired  out,  and  there  being 
no  one  to  head  the  country  now  Great  Oliver  was  dead,  it  was 
readily  agreed  to  welcome  Charles  Stuart.  Some  of  the  wiser 
and  better  members  said, — what  was  most  true, — that  in  the 
letter  from  Breda,  he  gave  no  real  promise  to  govern  well,  and 
that  it  would  be  best  to  make  him  pledge  himself  beforehand 
as  to  what  he  should  be  bound  to  do  for  the  benefit  of  the  king- 
dom. Monk  said,  however,  it  would  be  all  right  when  he  came, 
and  he  could  not  come  too  soon. 

So  everybody  found  out  all  in  a  moment  that  the  country  must 
be  I  rosperous  and  happy,  having  another  Stuart  to  condescend 
to  reign  over  it ;  and  there  was  a  prodigious  firing-off  of  guns, 
lighting  of  bonfires,  ringing  of  bells,  and  throwing  up  of  caps. 
The  people  drank  the  king's  health  by  thousands  in  the  open 
.streets,  and  everybody  rejoiced.  Down  came  the  arms  of  the 
Commonwealth,  up  went  the  royal  arms  instead,  and  out  came 
the  public  money.  Fifty  thousand  pounds  for  the  king,  ten 
thousand  pounds  for  his  brother  the  Duke  of  York,  five  thou- 
sand pounds  for  his  brother  the  Duke  of  Gloucester.  Prayers 
for  these  gracious  Stuarts  were  put  up  in  all  the  churches ; 
commissioners  were  sent  to  Holland  (which  suddenly  found  out 
that  Charles  was  a  great  man,  and  that  it  loved  him)  to  invite 
the  king  home  ;  Monk  and  the  Kentish  grandees  went  to 
Dover  to  kneel  down  before  him  as  he  landed.  He  kissed  and 
embraced  Monk,  made  him  ride  in  the  coach  with  himself  and 
his  brothers,  came  on  to  London  amid  wonderful  shoutings, 
and  passed  through  the  army  at  Blackheath  on  the  29th  of 
May  (his  birthday),  1660.  Greeted  by  splendid  dinners  under 
tents,  by  flags  and  tapestry  streaming  from  all  the  houses,  by 
delighted  crowds  in  all  the  streets,  by  troops  of  noblemen  and 
gentlemen  in  rich  dresses,  by  city  companies,  train-bands, 
drummers,  trumpeters,  the  great  lord  mayor,  and  the  majestic 
aldermen,  the  king  went  on  to  Whitehall.  On  entering  it,  he 
commemorated  his  restoration  with  the  joke  that  it  really  would 
kjeem  to  htjve  been  his  own  fault  that  he  had  not  come  long 


332  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

ago,  since  everybody  told  him  tliat  he  had  always  wished  foi 
him  with  all  his  heart. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

ENGLAND   UNDER   CHARLES   THE   SECOND,  CALLED   THE 
MERRY   MONARCH. 

There  never  was  such  profligate  times  in  England  as  under 
Charles  the  Second.  Whenever  you  see  his  portrait,  with  his 
swarthy,  ill-looking  face  and  great  nose,  you  may  fancy  him  in 
his  Court  at  Whitehall,  surrounded  by  some  of  the  very  worst 
vagabonds  in  the  kingdom,  (though  they  were  lords  and  ladies), 
drinking,  gambling,  indulging  in  vicious  conversation,  and  com- 
mitting every  kind  of  profligate  excess.  It  has  been  a  fashion 
to  call  Charles  the  Second  "  The  Merry  Monarch."  Let  me 
try  to  give  you  a  general  idea  of  some  of  the  merry  things  that 
were  done  in  the  merry  days  when  this  merry  gentleman  sat 
upon  his  merry  throne,  in  merry  England. 

The  first  merry  proceeding  was,  of  course,  to  declare  that 
he  was  one  of  the  greatest,  the  wisest,  and  the  noblest  kings 
that  ever  shone,  like  the  blessed  sun  itself,  on  this  benighted 
earth.  The  next  merry  and  pleasant  piece  of  business  was,  for 
the  Parliament,  in  the  humblest  manner,  to  give  him  one  mil- 
lion two  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  to  settle  upon 
him  for  life  that  old  disputed  tonnage  and  poundage  which  had 
been  so  bravely  fought  for.  Then  General  Monk,  being  made 
Earl  of  Albemarle,  and  a  few  royalists  similarly  rewarded,  the 
law  went  to  work  to  see  what  was  to  be  done  to  those  persons 
(they  were  called  Regicides)  who  had  been  concerned  in  mak- 
ing a  martyr  of  the  late  king.  Ten  of  these  were  merrily  exe- 
cuted ;  that  it  is  say,  six  of  the  judges,  one  of  the  council. 
Colonel  Hacker  and  another  officer  who  had  commanded  the 
Guards,  and  Hugh  Peters,  a  preacher  who  had  preached  against 
the  martyr  with  all  his  heart.  These  executions  were  so  ex- 
tremely merry,  that  every  horrible  circumstance  which  Crom- 
well had  abandoned  was  revived  with  appalling  cruelty.  The 
hearts  of  the  sufferers  were  torn  out  of  their  living  bodies  ; 
their  bowels  were  burned  before  their  faces  ;  the  executioner 
cut  jokes  to  the  next  victim,  as  he  rubbed  his  filthy  hands  to- 
gether, that  were  reeking  with  the  blood  of  the  last ;  and  the 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 


333 


heads  of  the  dead  were  drawn  on  sledges  with  the  living  to  the 
place  of  suffering.  Still,  even  so  merry  a  monarch  could  not 
force  one  of  these  dying  men  to  say  that  he  was  sorry  for  what 
he  had  done.  Nay,  the  most  memorable  thing  said  among 
them  was,  that  if  the  thing  were  to  do  again  they  would  do  it. 

Sir  Harry  Vane,  who  had  furnished  the  evidence  against 
Strafford,  and  was  one  of  the  most  stanch  of  the  Republicans, 
was  also  tried,  found  guilty,  and  ordered  for  execution.  When 
he  came  upon  the  scaffold  on  Tower  Hill,  after  conducting  his 
own  defence  with  great  power,  his  notes  of  what  he  had  meant 
to  say  to  the  people  were  torn  away  from  him,  and  the  drums 
and  trumpets  were  ordered  to  sound  lustily  and  drown  his 
voice  ;  for  the  people  had  been  so  much  impressed  by  what  the 
Regicides  had  calmly  said  with  their  last  breath,  that  it  was  the 
custom  now  to  have  the  drums  and  trumpets  always  under  the 
scaffold,  ready  to  strike  up.  Vane  said  no  more  than  this  :  "  It 
is  a  bad  cause  which  cannot  bear  the  words  of  a  dying  man  ; " 
and  bravely  died. 

These  merry  scenes  were  succeeded  by  another,  perhaps 
even  merrier.  On  the  anniversary  of  the  late  king's  deatL,  th^ 
bodies  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  Bradshaw  were  torn  out 
of  their  graves  in  Westminster  Abbey,  dragged  to  Tybui  , 
hanged  there  on  a  gallows  all  day  long,  and  then  behc.id^  . 
Imagine  the  head  of  Oliver  Cromwell  set  upon  a  pole  to  bo 
stared  at  by  a  brutal  crowd,  not  one  of  whom  would  have  dr.red 
to  look  the  living  Oliver  in  the  face  for  half  a  moment !  Thinl;, 
after  you  have  read  this  reign,  what  England  was  under  Oliver 
Cromwell,  who  was  torn  out  of  his  grave,  and  what  it  was  under 
this  merry  monarch  who  sold  it,  like  a  merry  Judas,  over  and 
over  again. 

Of  course,  the  remains  of  Oliver's  wife  and  daughter  were 
not  to  be  spared  either,  though  they  had  been  most  excellent 
women.  The  base  clergy  of  this  time  gave  up  their  bodies, 
which  had  been  buried  in  the  Abbey ;  and — to  the  eternal  dis- 
grace of  England — they  were  thrown  into  a  pit,  together  with 
the  mouldering  bones  of  Pym,  and  of  the  brave  and  bold  old 
Admiral  Blake. 

The  clergy  acted  this  disgraceful  part  because  they  hoped 
to  get  the  non-conformists,  or  dissenters,  thoroughly  put  down 
in  this  reign,  and  to  have  but  one  prayer-book  and  one  service 
for  all  kinds  of  people,  no  matter  what  their  private  opinions 
were.  This  was  pretty  well,  I  think,  for  a  Protestant  Church, 
which  had  displaced  the  Romish  Church  because  people  had  a 
right  to  their  own  opinions  in  religious  matters.     However,  they 


334  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGL  A  NB 

carried  it  with  a  high  hand,  and  a  prayer-book  was  agreed  upon, 
in  which  the  extremest  opinions  of  Archbishop  Laud  were  not 
forgotten.  An  act  was  passed,  too,  preventing  any  dissenter 
from  holding  any  office  under  any  corporation.  So  the  regular 
clergy,  in  their  triumph,  were  soon  as  merry  as  the  king.  The 
army  being  by  this  time  disbanded,  and  the  king  crowned, 
everything  was  to  go  on  easily  for  evermore. 

I  must  say  a  word  here  about  the  king's  family.  He  had 
not  been  long  upon  the  throne  when  his  brother,  the  Duke  o\ 
Gloucester,  and  his  sister,  the  Princess  of  Orange,  died,  within 
a  few  months  of  each  other,  of  small-pox.  His  remaining  sister, 
the  Princess  Henrietta,  married  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  the 
brother  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  King  of  France.  His  brcchei 
James,  Duke  of  York,  was  made  high  admiral,  and  by  and  by 
became  a  Catholic.  He  was  a  gloomy,  sullen,  bilious  sort  oi 
man,  with  a  remarkable  partiality  for  the  ugliest  women  in  th& 
country.  He  married,  under  very  discreditable  circumstances^ 
Anne  Hyde,  the  daughter  of  Lord  Clarendon,  then  the  king's 
principal  minister, — not  at  all  a  delicate  minister  either,  bui 
doing  much  of  the  dirty  work  of  a  very  dirty  palace.  It  be- 
came important  now  that  the  king  himself  should  be  married  ; 
and  divers  foreign  monarchs,  not  very  particular  about  the  char- 
acter of  their  son-in-law,  proposed  their  daughters  to  him.  The 
King  of  Portugal  offered  his  daughter,  Catherine  of  Braganzn, 
and  fifty  thousand  pounds ;  in  addition  to  which,  the  French 
king,  who  was  favorable  to  that  match,  offered  a  loan  of  an- 
other fifty  thousand.  The  King  of  Spain,  on  the  other  hand, 
offered  any  one  out  of  a  dozen  of  princesses,  and  other  hopes  of 
gain.  But  the  ready  money  carried  the  day,  and  Catherine 
came  over  in  state  to  her  merry  marriage. 

The  whole  court  was  a  great  flaunting  crowd  of  debauched 
men  and  shameless  women ;  and  Catherine's  merry  husband 
insulted  and  outraged  her  in  every  possible  way,  until  she  con- 
sented to  receive  those  worthless  creatures  as  her  very  good 
friends,  and  to  degrade  herself  by  their  companionship.  A 
Mrs.  Palmer,  whom  the  king  made  Lady  Castlemaine,  and  af- 
terwards Duchess  of  Cleveland,  was  one  of  the  most  powerful 
of  the  bad  women  about  the  court,  and  had  great  influence 
with  the  king  nearly  all  through  his  reign.  Another  merry  lady, 
named  Moll  Davies,  a  dancer  at  the  theatre,  was  afterwards 
her  rival.  So  was  Nell  Gwyn,  first  an  orange  girl  and  then  an 
actress,  who  really  had  good  in  her,  and  of  whom  one  of  the 
worst  things  I  know  is,  that  actually  she  does  seem  to  have 
been  fond  of  the  king.     The  first  Duke  of  St.  Albans  was  this 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND, 


335 


orange-girl's  child.  In  like  manner  the  son  of  a  merry  wait- 
ing-lady, whom  the  king  created  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  be- 
came the  Duke  of  Riciimond.  Upon  the  whole,  it  is  not  so 
bad  a  thing  to  be  a  commo.ier. 

The  Merry  Monarch  was  so  exceedingly  merry  among  these 
merry  ladies,  and  some  equally  merry  (and  equally  infamous) 
lords  and  gentlemen,  that  he  soon  got  through  his  hundred 
thousand  pounds,  and  then,  by  way  of  raising  a  little  pocket- 
money,  made  a  merry  bargain.  He  sold  Dunkirk  to  the  French 
ki.ig  for  hve  millions  of  livres.  When  I  think  of  the  dignity  to 
whicli  Oliver  Cromwell  raised  England  in  the  eyes  of  foreign 
powers,  and  when  I  think  of  the  manner  in  which  he  gained 
for  England  this  very  Dunkirk,  I  am  much  inclined  to  consider 
that  if  the  Merry  Monarch  had  been  made  to  follow  his  iatlier 
for  this  action,  he  would  have  received  his  just  deserts. 

Thou;;h  he  was  like  his  father  in  none  of  that  father's 
greater  qualities,  he  was  like  him  in  being  worthy  of  no  trust. 
When  he  sent  that  letter  to  the  Parliament,  from  Breda,  he  did 
expressly  promise  that  all  sincere  religious  opinions  should  be 
respected.  Yet  he  was  no  sooner  firm  in  his  power  than  he 
consented  to  one  of  the  worst  acts  of  Parliament  ever  passed. 
Under  this  law,  every  minister  who  should  not  give  his  solemn 
assent  to  the  prayer-book  by  a  certain  day,  was  declared  to-be 
a  minister  no  longer,  and  to  be  deprived  of  his  church.  The 
consequence  of  this  was,  that  some  two  thousand  honest  men 
were  taken  from  their  congregations,  and  reduced  to  dire 
poverty  and  distress.  It  was  followed  by  another  outrageous 
law,  called  the  Conventicle  Act,  by  which  any  person  above  the 
age  of  sixteen,  who  was  present  at  any  religious  service  not 
according  to  the  prayer-book,  was  to  be  imprisoned  three 
months  for  tl  e  first  offence,  six  for  the  second,  and  to  be 
transported  for  the  third.  This  act  alone  filled  the  prisons, 
which  were  then  most  dreadful  dungeons,  to  overflowing. 

The  Covenanters  in  Scotland  had  already  fared  no  better. 
A  base  parliament,  usually  known  as  the  Drunken  Parliament, 
in  consequence  of  its  principal  members  being  seldom  sober, 
had  been  got  to.^tther  to  make  laws  against  the  Covenanters, 
and  force  all  men  lo  be  of  one  mind  in  religious  matters.  The 
Marquis  of  Argyle,  relying  on  the  king's  honor,  had  given  him- 
self up  to  him ;  but  he  was  wealthy,  and  his  enemies  wanted 
his  wealth.  He  was  tried  for  treason,  on  the  evidence  of  some 
private  letters  in  which  he  had  expressed  opinions — as  well 
he  might — more  favorable  to  the  government  of  the  late  Lord 
Protector  than  of  the  present   merry  and   religious  king.     He 


336  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

was  executed,  as  were  two  men  of  mark  among  the  Covenant- 
ers ;  and  Sharp,  a  traitor  who  had  once  been  the  friend  of  the 
Presbyterians,  and  betrayed  them,  was  made  Archbishop  of 
St,  Andrews,  to  teach  the  Scotch  how  to  like  bishops. 

Things  being  in  this  merry  state  at  home,  the  merry  mon- 
arch undertook  a  war  with  the  Dutch  ;  principally  because  they 
interfered  with  an  African  company,  established  with  the  two 
objects  of  buying  gold-dust  and  slaves,  of  which  the  Duke  of 
York  was  a  leading  member.  After  some  preliminary  hostili- 
ties, the  said  duke  sailed  to  the  coast  of  Holland  with  a  fleet 
of  ninety-eight  vessels  of  war,  and  four  fire-ships.  This  en- 
gaged with  the  Dutch  fleet,  of  no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and 
thirteen  ships.  In  the  great  battle  between  the  two  forces,  the 
Dutch  lost  eighteen  ships,  four  admirals,  and  seven  thousand 
men.  But  the  English  on  shore  were  in  no  mood  of  exultation 
when  they  heard  the  news. 

For  th'is  was  the  year  and  the  time  of  the  Great  Plague  in 
London.  During  the  winter  of  1664  it  had  been  whispered 
about,  that  some  few  people  had  died  here  and  there  of  the 
disease  called  the  Plague,  in  some  of  the  unwholesome  suburbs 
around  London.  News  was  not  published  at  that  time  as  it  is 
!iow,  and  some  people  believed  these  rumors,  and  some  dis- 
l^elieved  them,  and  they  were  soon  forgotten.  But  in  the 
month  of  May,  1665,  it  began  to  be  said  all  over  the  town  that 
the  disease  had  burst  out  with  great  violence  in  St.  Giles's, 
and  that  the  people  were  dying  in  great  numbers.  This  soon 
turned  out  to  be  awfully  true.  The  roads  out  of  London  were 
choked  up  by  people  endeavoring  to  escape  from  the  infected 
city,  and  large  sums  were  paid  for  any  kind  of  conveyance. 
The  disease  soon  spread  so  fast,  that  it  was  necessary  to  shut 
up  the  houses  in  which  sick  people  were,  and  to  cut  them  off 
from  communication  with  the  living.  Every  one  of  these 
houses  was  marked  on  the  outside  of  the  door  with  a  red  cross, 
and  the  words,  "  Lord,  have  mercy  upon  us  !  "  The  streets 
were  all  deserted,  grass  grew  in  the  public  ways,  and  there 
was  a  dreadful  silence  in  the  air.  When  night  came  on,  dis- 
mal rumblings  used  to  be  heard  ;  and  these  were  the  wheels  of 
the  death-carts,  attended  by  men  with  veiled  faces  and  holding 
cloths  to  their  mouths,  who  rang  doleful  bells,  and  cried  in  a 
loud  and  solemn  voice,  "  Bring  out  your  dead  !  "  The  corpses 
put  into  these  carts  were  buried  by  torchlight  in  great  pits ;  no 
service  being  performed  over  them  ;  all  men  being  afraid  to 
stay  for  a  moment  on  the  brink  of  the  ghastly  graves.  In  the 
general  fear,  children  ran  away  from  their  parents,  and  parents 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND.         337 

from  their  children.  Some  who  were  taken  ill,  died  alone,  and 
without  any  help.  Some  were  stabbed  or  strangled  by  hired 
nurses,  who  robbed  them  of  all  their  money,  and  stole  the  very 
beds  on  which  they  lay.  Some  went  mad,  dropped  from  the 
windows,  ran  through  the  streets,  and  in  their  pain  and  frenzy 
flung  themselves  into  the  river. 

These  were  not  all  the  horrors  of  the  time.  The  wicked 
and  dissolute,  in  wild  desperation,  sat  in  the  taverns  singing 
roaring  songs,  and  were  stricken  as  they  drank,  and  went  out 
and  died.  The  fearful  and  superstitious  persuaded  themselves 
that  they  saw  supernatural  sights, — burning  swords  in  the  sky, 
gigantic  arms  and"  darts.  Others  pretended  that  at  nights  vast 
crowds  of  ghosts  walked  round  and  round  the  dismal  pits.  One 
madman,  naked,  and  carrying  a  brazier  full  of  burning  coals 
upon  his  head,  stalked  through  the  streets,  crying  out  that  he 
was  a  prophet,  commissioned  to  denounce  the  vengeance  of  the 
Lord  on  wicked  London.  Another  always  went  to  and  fro, 
exclaiming,  "  Yet  forty  days,  and  London  shall  be  destroyed  !  " 
A  third  awoke  the  echoes  in  the  dismal  streets  by  night  and  by 
day,  and  made  the  blood  of  the  sick  run  cold,  by  calling  out 
incessantly,  in  a  deep,  hoarse  voice.  "  O  the  great  and  dreadful 
God  !  " 

Through  the  months  of  July  and  August  and  September, 
the  Great  Plague  raged  more  and  more.  Great  fires  were 
lighted  in  the  streets,  in  the  hope  of  stopping  the  infection, 
but  there  was  a  plague  of  rain,  too,  and  it  beat  the  fires  out. 
At  last,  the  winds  which  usually  arise  at  that  time  of  the  year 
which  is  called  the  equinox,  when  day  and  night  are  of  equal 
length  all  over  the  world,  began  to  blow,  and  to  purify  the 
wretched  town.  The  deaths  began  to  decrease,  the  red  crosses 
slowly  to  disappear,  the  fugitives  to  return,  the  shops  to  open, 
pale,  frightened  faces  to  be  seen  in  the  streets.  The  plague 
had  been  in  every  part  of  England ;  but  in  close  and  unwhole- 
some London  it  had  killed  one  hundred  thousand  people. 

All  this  time  the  Merry  Monarch  was  as  merry  as  ever,  and 
as  worthless  as  ever.  All  this  time  the  debauched  lords  and 
gentlemen  and  the  shameless  ladies  danced  and  gamed  and 
drank,  and  loved  and  hated  one  another,  according  to  their 
merry  ways.  So  little  humanity  did  the  government  learn  from 
the  late  affliction,  that  one  of  the  first  things  that  Parliament 
did  when  it  met  at  Oxford  (being  as  yet  afraid  to  come  to  Lon- 
don) was  to  make  a  law  called  the  Five-Mile  Act,  expressly  di- 
rected against  those  poor  ministers  who,  in  the  time  of  the 
plague,  had  manfully  come  back  to  comfort  the  unhappy  people, 


This  infairicus  i^.^y,  by  fort)i(3(3!ng^  them  fo  teach  in  any  schcn^ 
or   to  come  within   five   miles  of   any  city,   town,  or  viliaoe" 
doomed  them  to  starvation  and  death,'  ^" 

The  tieet  had  been  at  sea  and  healthy.  Th^  Kin^^  of  France 
was  now  in  alHance  with  the  Dutch;  though  hi*' navy  was 
chiefly  employed  in  looking  on  while  the  English  and  Dutch 
fou-ht.  The  Dutch  ,^amed  c--  v^— -.•  aind  the  English 
gaiiied  another  and  a  greater;  arid  Prince  Rupert,  one  ot  the 
English  adm'-dls,  was  out  in  the  Channel  one  windy  night, 
looking  for  the  French  admiral,  with  the  intention  of  giving  him 
something  more  to  do  than  he  had  had  yet,  when  the  gale  in- 
creased to  a  storm,  and  blew  him  into  Saint  Helen's.  That 
night  was  the  3d  of  September,  1666  ;  and  that  wind  fanned  the 
Great  Fire  of  London. 

It  broke  out  as  a  baker's  shop  near  London  Bridge  on  th* 
spot  on  which  the  monument  now  stands  as  a  remembrance  of 
those  raging  flames.  It  spread  and  spread,  and  burned  and 
burned  for  three  days.  The  nights  were  lighter  than  the  days  | 
in  the  daytime,  there  was  an  immense  cloud  of  smoke  ;  and  in 
the  night-time,  there  was  a  great  tower  of  fire  mounting  up  into 
the  sky,  which  lighted  the  whole  country  landscape  for  ten 
miles  round.  Showers  of  Lot  ashes  rose  into  the  air,  and  fell 
on  dist  nt  places  ;  flying  sparks  carried  the  conflagration  to 
great  distances,  and  kindled  it  in  twenty  new  spots  at  a  time ; 
church-steeples  fell  down  with  tremendous  crashes  ;  houses 
crumbled  into  coders  by  the  hundred  and  the  thousand.  The 
summer  had  been  intensely  hot  and  dry  ;  the  streets  were  very 
narrow,  and  the  houses  mostly  built  of  wood  and  plaster.  Noth- 
ing could  stop  the  tremendous  fire  but  the  want  of  more  houses 
to  burn  ;  nor  did  it  stop  until  the  whole  way  from  the  Tower  to 
Temple  Bar  was  a  desert,  composed  of  the  ashes  of  thirteen 
thousand  houses  and  eighty-nine  churches. 

This  was  a  terrible  visitation  at  the  time,  and  occasioned 
great  loss  and  suffering  to  the  two  hundred  thousand  burnt  out 
people,  who  were  obliged  to  lie  in  the  fields  under  the  open 
night  sky,  or  in  hastily  made  huts  of  mud  and  straw,  while  the 
lanes  and  roads  were  rendered  impassable  by  carts  which  had 
broken  down  as  they  tried  to  save  their  goods.  But  the  fire 
was  a  great  blessing  to  their  city  afterwards,  for  it  arose  from  its 
ruins  very  much  improved, — built  more  regularly,  more  widely, 
more  cleanly,  and  carefully,  and  therefore  much  more  healthily. 
It  might  be  far  more  healthy  than  it  is,  but  there  are  some 
people  in  it  still, — even  now  at  this  time,  nearly  two  hundred 
years  later, — so  selfish,  so  pig-headed,  and  so  ignorant,  that  I 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 


339 


doubt  if  even  another  great  fire  would  warm  them  up  to  do  their 
duty. 

The  Catholics  were  accused  of  having  wilfully  set  London 
in  flames  ;  one  poor  Frenchman,  who  had  been  mad  for  years, 
even  accused  himself  of  having  with  his  own  hand  tired  the  first 
house.  There  is  no  reasonable  doubt,  however,  that  the  fire 
was  accidental.  An  inscription  on  the  monument  long  attri- 
buted it  to  the  Catholics  ;  but  it  is  removed  now,  and  was  always 
a  malicious  and  stupid  untruth. 

Second  Part. 

That  the  Mrery  Monarch  might  be  very  merry  indeed,  in 
the  merry  times  when  his  people  were  suffering  under  pestilence 
and  fire,  he  drank  and  gambled  and  flung  away  among  his  fa- 
vorites the  money  which  the  Parliament  had  voted  for  the  war. 
The  consequence  of  this  was,  that  the  stout-hearted  English 
sailors  were  merrily  starving  of  want,  and  dying  in  the  streets ; 
while  the  Dutch,  under  their  admirals,  De  Witt  and  De  Ruyter, 
came  into  the  river  Thames,  and  up  the  river  Medway  as  far  as 
Upnor,  burned  the  guard-ships,  silenced  the  weak  batteries, 
and  did  what  they  would  to  the  English  coast  for  six  whole 
weeks.  Most  of  the  English  ships  that  could  have  prevented 
them  had  neither  powder  nor  shot  on  board  ;  in  this  merry 
reign,  public  officers  made  themselves  as  merry  as  the  king  did 
with  the  public  money  ;  and  when  it  was  intrusted  to  them  to 
spend  in  national  defences  or  preparations,  they  put  it  into 
their  own  pockets  with  the  merriest  grace  in  the  world. 

Lord  Clarendon  had,  by  this  time,  run  as  long  a  course  as 
is  usually  allotted  to  the  unscrupulous  ministers  of  bad  kings. 
He  was  impeached  by.  his  political  opponents,  but  unsuccess- 
fully. The  king  then  commanded  him  to  withdraw  from  Eng- 
land and  retire  to  France,  which  he  did  after  defending  him- 
self in  writing.  He  was  no  great  loss  at  home,  and  died  abroad 
some  seven  years  afterwards. 

There  then  came  into  power  a  ministry  called  the  Cabal 
Ministry,  because  it  was  composed  of  Lord  Clifford,  the  Earl  of 
Arlington,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  (a  great  rascal,  and  the 
king's  most  powerful  favorite).  Lord  Ashley,  and  the  Duke  of 
Lauderdale,  c.a.b.a.l.  As  the  French  were  making  conquests 
in  Flanders,  the  first  Cabal  proceeding  was  to  make  a  treaty 
with  the  Dutch,  for  uniting  with  Spain  to  oppose  the  French.  It 
was  no  sooner  made  than  the  Merry  Monarch,  who  always 
wanted  to  get  money  without  being  accountable  to  a  parliament 


340  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

for  his  expenditure,  apologized  to  tlie  King  of  France  for  hav- 
ing had  anything  to  do  with  it,  and  concluded  a  secret  treaty 
with  him,  making  himself  his  infamous  pensioner  to  the  amount 
of  two  millions  of  livres  down,  and  three  millions  more  a  year  ; 
and  engaging  to  desert  that  very  Spain,  to  make  war  against 
those  very  Dutch,  and  to  declare  himself  a  Catholic  when  a  con- 
venient time  should  arrive.  This  religious  king  had  lately  been 
crying  to  his  Catholic  brother  on  the  subject  of  his  strong  desire 
to  be  a  Catholic  ;  and  now  he  merrily  concluded  his  treason- 
able conspiracy  against  the  country  he  governed,  by  undertak- 
ing to  become  one  as  soon  as  he  safely  could.  For  all  of  which, 
though  he  had  had  ten  merry  heads  instead  of  one,  he  richly  de- 
served to  lose  them  by  the  headsman's  axe. 

As  his  own  merry  head  might  have  been  far  from  safe,  if 
these  things  had  been  known,  they  were  kept  very  quiet,  and 
war  was  declared  by  France  and  England  against  the  Dutch. 
But  a  very  uncommon  man,  afterwards  most  important  to  Eng- 
lish history  and  to  the  religion  and  liberty  of  this  land,  arose 
among  them,  and  for  many  long  years  defeated  the  whole  pro- 
jects of  France.  This  was  William  of  Nassau,  Prince  of  Orange, 
son  of  the  last  Prince  of  Orange  of  the  same  name,  who  married 
the  daughter  of  Charles  the  First  of  England.  He  was  a 
young  man  at  this  time,  only  just  of  age ;  but  he  was  brave, 
cool,  intrepid,  and  wise.  His  father  had  been  so  detested,  that, 
upon  his  death,  the  Dutch  had  abolished  the  authority  to 
which  this  son  would  have  otherwise  succeeded  (Stadtholder  it 
was  called),  and  placed  the  chief  power  in  the  hands  of  John 
de  Witt,  who  educated  this  young  prince.  Now  the  Prince 
became  very  popular,  and  John  de  Witt's  brother  Cornelius  was 
sentenced  to  banishment  on  a  false  accusation  of  conspiring  to 
kill  him.  John  went  to  the  prison  where  he  was  to  take  him 
away  to  exile,  in  his  coach ;  and  a  great  mob  who  collected  on 
the  occasion,  then  and  there  cruelly  murdered  both  the  brothers. 
This  left  the  government  in  the  hands  of  the  prince,  who  was 
really  the  choice  of  the  nation  ;  and  from  this  time  he  exercised 
it  with  the  greatest  vigor  against  the  whole  power  of  France, 
under  its  famous  generals,  Conde  and  Turenne,  and  in  support 
of  the  Protestant  religion.  It  was  full  seven  years  before  this 
war  ended  in  a  treaty  of  peace  made  at  Nimeguen,  and  its  de- 
tails would  occupy  a  very  considerable  space.  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  William  of  Orange  established  a  famous  character 
with  the  whole  world  ;  and  that  the  Merry  Monarch,  'adding  to 
and  improving  on  his  former  baseness,  bound  himself  to  do 
everything  the  King  of  France  liked,  and  nothing  the  King  of 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 


341 


France  did  not  like,  for  a  pension  of  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  which  was  afterwards  doubled.  Besides  this, 
the  King  of  France,  by  means  of  his  corrupt  ambassador — who 
wrote  accounts  of  his  proceedings  in  England,  which  are  not 
always  to  be  believed,  I  think — bought  our  English  members 
of  parliament,  as  he  wanted  them.  So,  in  point  of  fact,  during 
a  considerable  portion  of  this  merry  reign,  the  King  of  France 
was  the  real  king  of  this  country. 

But  there  was  a  better  time  to  come  ;  and  it  was  to  come 
(though  his  royal  uncle  little  thought  so)  through  that  very 
William,  Prince  of  Orange.  He  came  over  to  England,  saw 
Mary,  the  elder  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  married 
her.  We  shall  see  by  and  by  what  came  of  that  marriage,  and 
why  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten. 

This  daughter  was  a  Protestant,  but  her  mother  died  a 
Catholic.  She  and  her  sister  Anne,  also  a  Protestant,  were  the 
only  survivors  of  eight  children.  Anne  afterwards  married 
George,  Prince  of  Denmark,  brother  to  the  king  of  that  country. 

Lest  you  should  do  the  Merry  Monarch  the  injustice  of  sup- 
posing that  he  was  even  good  humored  (except  when  he  had 
everything  his  own  way),  or  that  he  was  high-spirited  and  hon- 
orable, I  will  mention  here  what  was  done  to  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  Sir  John  Coventry.  He  made  a  remark 
in  a  debate  about  taxing  the  theatres,  which  gave  the  king  of- 
fence. The  king  agreed  with  his  illegitimate  son,  who  had  been 
born  abroad,  and  whom  he  had  made  Duke  of  Monmouth,  to 
take  the  following  merry  vengeance.  To  waylay  him  at  night, 
fifteen  armed  men  to  one,  and  to  slit  his  nose  with  a  penknife. 
Like  master,  Mke  man.  The  king's  favorite,  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham, was  strongly  suspected  of  setting  on  an  assassin  to 
murder  the  Duke  of  Ormond  as  he  was  returning  home  from  a 
dinner ;  and  that  duke's  spirited  son.  Lord  Ossory,  was  so  per- 
suaded of  his  guilt,  that  he  said  to  him  at  court,  even  as  i^e 
stood  beside  the  king,  "  My  lord,  I  know  very  well  that  you  aic 
at  the  botLuni  ui  liiis  late  aUcujpt  upon  my  father  ;  but  I  give 
you  warning,  if  he  ever  come  to  a  violent  end,  his  blood  shall 
be  upon  you,  and  wherever  I  meet  you  1  will  pistol  you  !  1 
will  do  so,  though  1  fmd  you  standing  behind  the  king's  chair  ; 
and  I  tell  you  this  in  his  majesty's  presence,  that  you  may  be 
quite  sure  of  my  doing  what  I  threaten."  Those  w-ere  merry 
times  indeed. 

There  was  a  fellow  named  Blood,  whc  was  seized  for  mak- 
ing, with  two  companions,  an  audacious  attempt  to  steal  the 
crown,  the  globe,  and  sceptre,  from  the  place  where  the  jewels 


342 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


were  kept  in  the  Tower.  This  robber,  who  was  a  swaggering 
ruffian,  being  taken,  declared  that  he  was  the  man  who  had  en- 
deavored to  kill  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  and  that  he  had  meant 
to  kill  the  king  too,  but  was  overawed  by  the  majesty  of  his 
appearance,  when  he  might  otherwise  have  done  it,  as  he  was 
bathing  at  Battersea.  The  king  being  but  an  ill-looking  fellow^ 
I  don't  believe  a  word  of  this.  Whether  he  was  flattered,  or 
whether  he  knew  that  Buckingham  had  really  set  Blood  on  to 
murder  the  duke,  is  uncertain.  But  it  is  quite  certain  that  he 
pardoned  this  thief,  gave  him  an  estate  of  five  hundred  a  year 
in  Ireland  (which  had  had  the  honor  of  giving  him  birth),  and 
presented  him  at  court  to  the  debauched  lords  and  the  shame- 
less ladies,  who  made  a  great  deal  of  him, — as  1  have  no  doubt 
they  would  have  made  of  the  Devil  himself,  if  the  king  had  in- 
troduced him. 

Infamously  pensioned  as  he  was,  the  king  still  wanted  money 
and  consequently  was  obliged  to  call  parliaments.  In  these  the 
great  object  of  the  Protestants  was  to  thwart  the  Catholic  Duke 
of  York,  who  married  a  second  time  ;  his  new  wife  being  a 
young  lady  only  fifteen  years  old,  the  Catholic  sister  of  the 
Duke  of  Modena.  In  this  they  were  seconded  by  the  Protes- 
tant Dissenters,  though  to  their  own  disadvantage  ;  since,  to 
exclude  Catholics  from  power,  they  were  even  willing  to  exclude 
themselves.  The  king's  object  was  to  pretend  to  be  a  Protes- 
tant, while  he  was  really  a  Catholic ;  to  swear  to  the  bishops 
that  he  was  devoutly  attached  to  the  English  Church,  while  he 
knew  he  had  bargained  it  away  to  the  King  of  France  \  and 
by  cheating  and  deceiving  them,  and  all  who  were  attached  to 
royalty,  to  become  despotic  and  be  powerful  enough  to  confess 
what  a  rascal  he  was.  Meantime,  the  King  of  France,  know- 
ing his  merry  pensioner  well,  intrigued  with  the  king's  oppo- 
nents in  parliament,  as  well  as  with  the  king  and  his  friends. 

The  fears  that  the  country  had  of  the  Catholic  religion  be- 
ing restored,  if  the  Duke  of  York  should  come  to  the  throne, 
and  the  low  cunning  of  the  king  in  pretending  to  share  their 
alarms,  led  to  some  very  terrible  results.  A  certain  Dr.  Tonge 
a  dull  clergyman  in  the  city,  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  certain 
Titus  Gates,  a  most  infamous  character,  who  pretended  to  have 
acquired  among  the  Jesuits  abroad  a  knowledge  of  a  great  plot 
for  the  murder  of  the  king,  and  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Catholic  religion.  Titus  Gates,  being  produced  by  this  unlucky 
Dr.  Tonge,  and  solemnly  examined  before  the  council,  contra- 
dicted himself  in  a  thousand  ways,  told  the  most  ridiculous  and 
improbable  stories,  and  implicated  Coleman,  the  secretary  of 


BNQLAND  UNDER  Ch/iR--J.^   ..         ....l^i'/j:;,        34^ 

■y-^  jOucbess  01  v'orlc,     iT:>7^',  dthcu^-i  ^-y:.:.:  '-..^  Sr^iyi^ii  against 
r^oleman  wss  not  true,  and  alihcL-gh  you  and  i  know  veiy  well 
■':at  the  r^j'-J   d?5ngerous  C.il'i'j;ic  plct  was  that  one  with  the 
'^ing  of  Frj::ce  of  which  the  Merry  Monarch  was  hiir.self  the 
,:3ad,   there  happened  to  be  found  among  Coleman's  papers 
?ome  letters  in  which  he  did  praise  the  days  of  Bloody  Queen 
>^ar3^  and  abuse  the  Protestant  religion.     This  was  great  good 
■ortune  for  Titus,  as  it  seemed  to  confi"m  him  ;  but  better  still 
7.?s  in  store.     Sir  Edmundbury  God.^  ey,  the  m.agistrate  who 
'^ad  first  examined  him,  being  unexper^tedly  found  dead  near 
Primrose  Hill,  was  confidently  belie^  ed  tc  havs  been  killed  by 
the  Cat"^  ~""^    ■  T  think  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  had  been  mel- 
ancholy maa,  ana  cl^a-  I"'"  \\-^\-^^  ^'•^.n^self;  but  he  had  a  great 
Protestant  funeral,*  and  Titus  was  cawcu  the  Save"  ■^'  '■  -^  Na- 
tion, and  received  a  pension  of  twelve  hundred  pounds  i  yes.:. 
As  soon  as  Oates's  wickedness  had  met  with  this  succesi'; 
up  started  another  villain  named  William  Bedloe,  who,  attracte:2 
by  a  reward  of  five  hundred  pounds  offered  for  the  apprehe: 
sion-of  tlie  murderers  of  Godfrey,  came  forward  and  charge 
two  Jesuits  and  some   other  persons  with  having  committed  ; 
at  the  queen's  desire.     Gates,  going  into  partnership  with  th  . 
new  informer,  had  the  audacity  to  accuse  the  poor  queen  he , 
self  of  high  treason.     Then  appeared  a  third  informer,  as  br. 
as  either  of  the  two,  and  accused  a  Catholic  banker,  name-". 
Stayley,  of  having  said  that  the  king  was  aie  greatest  rogue  ii. 
the  world  (which  would  not  have  been  far  from  tlje  truth),  anc 
that  he  would  kill  him  with  his  own  hand.     This  banker  beins; 
r':  once  tried  and  executed,  Coleman  and  two  others  v/ere  tri   :' 
rnd    executed.     Then   a   miserable  wretch   named   Prance,  • 
Cilthoiic  silve^'-'-nifT^,  being  accused  by  Bedloe,  was  tortured  *■ 
confessing  I.  .._,.,  ....i-dcr,  ana  lkl. 

accusing  three  other  men  of  liaving  committed  it.  Then  five 
'Jesuits  were  accused  by  Gates,  Bedloe,  and  Prance  together, 
and  were  all  found  guilty,  and  executed  on  the  same  kind  of 
contradictory  and  absurd  evidence.  The  queen's  physician  and 
three  monks  were  next  put  on  their  trial ;  but  Gates  and  Bed- 
loe had  for  the  time  gone  far  enough,  and  these  four  were  ac- 
quitted. The  public  mind,  however,  was  so  full  of  a  Catholic 
plot,  and  so  strong  against  the  Duke  of  York,  that  James  con- 
sented to  obey  a  written  order  from  his  brother,  and  to  go  with 
his  family  to  Brussels,  providing  that  his  rights  should  never  be 
sacrificed  in  his  absence  to  the  Duke  of  Monmouth.  The 
House  of  Commons,  not  satisfied  with  this  as  the  king  hoped, 
passed  a  bill  to  exclude  the  duke  from  ever  succeeding  to  the 


344  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

throne.  In  return,  the  king  dissolved  the  Parliament.  He  had 
deserted  his  old  favorite,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  was 
now  in  the  opposition. 

To  give  any  sufficient  idea  of  the  miseries  of  Scotland  in 
this  merry  reign  would  occupy  a  hundred  pages.  Because  the 
people  would  not  have  bishops,  and  were  resolved  to  stand  by 
their  solemn  League  and  Covenant,  such  cruelties  were  inflicted 
upon  them  as  to  make  the  blood  run  cold.  Ferocious  dragoons 
galloped  through  the  country  to  punish  the  peasants  for 
deserting  the  churches  j  sons  were  hanged  up  at  their  fathers' 
doors  for  refusing  to  disclose  where  their  fathers  were  con- 
cealed ;  wives  were  tortured  to  death  for  not  betraying  their 
husbands ;  people  were  taken  out  of  their  fields  and  gardens, 
and  shot  on  the  public  road,  without  trial ;  lighted  matches 
were  tied  to  the  fingers  of  prisoners,  and  a  most  horrible  tor- 
ment, called  the  Boot,  was  invented,  and  constantly  applied, 
which  ground  and  mashed  the  victims'  legs  with  iron  wedges. 
Witnesses  were  tortured  as  well  as  prisoners.  All  the  prisons 
were  full ;  all  the  gibbets  were  heavy  with  bodies  \  murder  and 
plunder  devastated  the  whole  country.  In  spite  of  all,  the 
Covenanters  were  by  no  means  to  be  dragged  into  the  churches, 
and  persisted  in  worshipping  God  as  they  thought  right.  A 
body  of  ferocious  Highlanders,  turned  upon  them  from  the 
mountains  of  their  own  country,  had  no  greater  effect  than  the 
English  dragoons  under  Grahame  of  Claverhouse,  the  most 
cruel  and  rapacious  of  all  their  enemies,  whose  name  will  ever 
be  cursed  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Scotland.  Arch- 
bishop Sharp  had  ever  aided  and  abetted  all  these  outrages. 
But  he  fell  at  last ;  for,  when  the  injuries  of  the  Scottish  people 
were  at  their  height,  he  was  seen,  in  his  coach-and-six  coming 
across  a  moor,  by  a  body  of  men,  headed  by  one  John  Balfour, 
who  were  waiting  for  another  of  their  oppressors.  Upon  this 
they  cried  out  that  Heaven  had  delivered  him  into  their  hands, 
and  killed  him  with  many  wounds.  If  ever  a  man  deserved 
such  a  death,  I  think  Archbishop  Sharp  did. 

It  made  a  great  noise  directly,  and  the  Merry  Monarch 
(strongly  suspected  of  having  goaded  the  Scottish  people  on,, 
that  he  might  have  an  excuse  for  a  greater  army  than  the 
Parliament  were  willing  to  give  him),  sent  down  his  son,  the 
Duke  of  Monmouth,  as  commander-in-chief,  with  instructions 
to  attack  the  Scottish  rebels,  or  Whigs,  as  they  were  called, 
whenever  he  came  up  with  them.  Marching  with  ten  thousand 
men  from  Edinburgh,  he  found  them,  in  number  four  or  five 
thousand,  drawn  up  at  Bothwell  Bridge,  by  the  Clyde.     They 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 


345 


were  soon  dispersed ;  and  Monmouth  showed  a  more  humane 
character  towards  them  than  he  had  shown  towards  that  mem- 
ber of  parHament  whose  nose  he  had  caused  to  be  slit  with  a 
penknife.  But  the  Duke  of  Lauderdale  was  their  bitter  foe, 
and  sent  Claverhouse  to  finish  them. 

As  the  Duke  of  York  became  more  and  more  unpopular, 
the  Duke  of  Monmouth  became  more  and  more  popular.  It 
would  have  been  decent  in  the  latter  not  to  have  voted  in 
favor  of  the  renewed  bill  for  the  exclusion  of  James  from  the 
throne  ;  but  he  did  so,  much  to  the  king's  amusement,  who 
used  to  sit  in  the  House  of  Lords,  by  the  fire,  hearing  the 
debates,  which  he  said  were  as  gOod  as  a  play.  The  House  of 
Commons  passed  the  bill  by  a  large  majority,  and  it  was  car- 
ried up  to  the  House  of  Lords  by  Lord  Russell,  one  of  the  best 
of  the  leaders  on  the  Protestant  side.  It  was  rejected  there, 
chiefly  because  the  bishops  helped  the  king  to  get  rid  of  it ; 
and  the  fear  of  Catholic  plots  revived  again.  There  had  been 
another  got  up,  by  a  fellow  out  of  Newgate,  named  Danger- 
field,  which  is  more  famous  than  it  deserves  to  be,  under  the 
name  of  the  Meal-Tub  Plot.  This  jail-bird  having  been  got 
out  of  Newgate  by  a  Mrs.  Cellier,  a  Catholic  nurse,  had  turned 
Catholic  himself,  and  pretended  that  he  knew  of  a  plot  among 
the  Presbyterians  against  the  king's  life.  This  was  very  pleas- 
ant to  the  Duke  of  York,  who  hated  the  Presbyterians,  who 
returned  the  compliment.  He  gave  Dangerfield  twenty  guineas, 
and  sent  him  to  the  king,  his  brother.  But  Dangerfield  break- 
ing down  altogether  in  his  charge,  and  being  sent  back  to 
Newgate,  almost  astonished  the  duke  out  of  his  five  senses 
by  suddenly  swearing  that  the  Catholic  nurse  had  put  that 
false  design  into  his  head,  and  that  what  he  really  knew  about 
was  a  Catholic  plot  against  the  king ;  the  evidence  of  which 
would  be  found  in  some  papers  concealed  in  a  meal-tub  in 
Mrs.  Cellier's  house.  There  they  were  of  course, — for  he  had 
put  them  there  himself — and  so  the  tub  gave  the  name  to  the 
plot.  But  the  nurse  was  acquitted  on  her  trial,  and  it  came 
to  nothing. 

Lord  Ashley,  of  the  Cabal,  was  now  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and 
was  strong  against  the  succession  of  the  Duke  of  York.  The 
House  of  Commons,  aggravated  to  the  utmost  extent,  as  we 
may  well  suppose,  by  suspicions  of  the  king's  conspiracy  with 
the  King  of  France,  made  a  desperate  point  of  the  exclusion 
still,  and  were  bitter  against  the  Catholics  generally.  So  un- 
justly bitter  were  they,  I  grieve  to  say,  that  they  impeached  the 
venerable  Lord  Stafford,  a  Catholic  nobleman,  seventy  years 


346  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

old,  of  a  design  to  kill  the  king.  The  witnesses  were  that 
atrocious  Oates  and  two  other  birds  of  the  same  feather.  He 
was  found  guilty,  on  evidence  quite  as  foolish  as  it  was  false, 
and  was  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill.  The  people  were  opposed 
to  him  when  he  first  appeared  upon  the  scaffold ;  but,  wlien 
he  had  addressed  them  and  shown  them  how  innocent  he  was, 
and  how  wickedly  he  was  sent  there,  their  better  nature  was 
aroused,  and  they  said,  "  We  believe  you,  my  lord.  God  bless 
you,  my  lord  !  " 

The  House  of  Commons  refused  to  let  the  king  have  any 
money  until  he  should  consent  to  the  Exclusion  Bill ;  but,  as 
he  could  get  it  and  did  get  it  from  his  master,  the  King  of 
France,  he  could  afford  to  hold  them  very  cheap.  He  called  a 
parliament  at  Oxford,  to  which  he  went  down  with  a  great 
show  of  being  armed  and  protected,  as  if  he  were  in  danger  of 
his  life,  and  to  which  the  opposition  members  also  went  armed 
and  protected,  alleging  that  they  were  in  fear  of  the  Papists, 
who  were  numerous  among  the  king's  guards.  However,  they 
went  on  with  the  Exclusion  Bill,  and  were  so  earnest  upon  it 
that  they  would  have  carried  it  again,  if  the  king  had  not 
popped  his  crown  and  state  robes  into  a  sedan-chair,  bundled 
himself  into  it  along  with  them,  hurried  down  to  the  chamber 
where  the  House  of  Lords  met,  and  dissolved  the  Parliament. 
After  which  he  scampered  home,  and  the  members  of  Parlia- 
ment scampered  home,  too,  as  fast  as  their  legs  could  carr}^them. 

The  Duke  of  York,  then  residing  in  Scotland,  had,  under 
the  law  which  excluded  Catholics  from  public  trust,  no  right 
whatever  to  public  employment.  Nevertheless  he  was  openly 
employed  as  the  king's  representative  in  Scotland,  and 
there  gratified  his  sullen  and  cruel  nature  to  his  heart's  con- 
tent by  directing  the  dreadful  cruelties  against  the  Covenant- 
ers. There  were  two  ministers,  named  Cargill  and  Cameron, 
who  had  escaped  from  the  battle  of  Bothwell  Bridge,  and 
who  returned  to  Scotland  and  raised  the  miserable  but  still 
brave  and  unsubdued  Covenanters  afresh,  under  the  name  of 
Cameronians.  As  Cameron  publicly  posted  a  declaration  that 
the  king  was  a  forsworn  tyrant,  no  mercy  was  shown  to  his  un- 
fortunate followers  after  he  was  slain  in  battle.  The  Duke  of 
York,  who  was  particularly  fond  of  the  Boot,  and  derived  great 
pleasure  from  having  it  applied,  offered  their  lives  to  some  of 
these  people  if  they  would  cry  on  the  scaffold,  "  God  save  the 
king  !  "  But  their  relations,  friends,  and  countrymen  had  been 
so  barbarously  tortured  and  murdered  in  this  merry  reign,  that 
they  preferred  to  die,  and  did  die.     The  duke  than  obtained 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND. 


347 


his  merry  brother's  permission  to  hold  a  parliament  in  Scot- 
land, which  first,  with  most  shameless  deceit,  confirmed  the 
laws  for  securing  the  Protestant  religion  against  Popery,  and 
then  declared  that  nothing  must  or  should  prevent  the  succes- 
sion of  the  popish  duke.  After  this  double-faced  beginning,  it 
established  an  oath  which  no  human  being  could  understand, 
but  which  everybody  was  to  take  as  a  proof  that  his  religion 
was  the  lawful  religion.  The  Earl  of  Argyle,  taking  it  with  the 
explanation  that  he  did  not  consider  it  to  prevent  him  from 
favoring  any  alteration,  either  in  the  Church  or  State,  which 
was  not  inconsistent  with  the  Protestant  religion  or  with  his 
loyalty,  was  tried  for  high  treason  by  a  Scottish  jury,  of  which 
the  Marquis  of  Montrose  was  foreman,  and  was  found  guilty. 
He  escaped  the  scaffold,  for  that  time,  by  getting  avvay,  in  the 
disguise  of  a  page,  in  the  train  of  his  daughter,  Lady  Sophia 
Lindsay.  It  was  absolutely  proposed,  by  certain  members  of 
the  Scottish  Council,  that  this  lady  should  be  whipped  through 
the  streets  of  Edinburgh.  But  this  was  too  much  even  for  the 
duke,  who  had  the  manliness  then  (he  had  a  very  little  at  most 
times  )  to  remark  that  Englishmen  were  not  accustomed  to  treat 
ladies  in  that  manner.  In  those  merry  times,  nothing  could 
equal  the  brutal  servility  of  the  Scottish  fawners  but  the  con- 
duct of  similar  degraded  beings  in  England 

After  the  settlement  of  these  little  affairs,  the  duke  returned 
to  England,  and  soon  resumed  his  place  at  the  council,  and  his 
office  of  high  admiral, — all  this  by  his  brother's  favor,  and  in 
open  defiance  of  the  law.  It  would  have  been  no  loss  to  the 
countr}'  if  he  had  been  drowned  when  his  ship,  in  going  to 
Scotland  to  fetch  his  family,  struck  on  a  sand-bank,  and  was 
lost  with  two  hundred  souls  on  board.  But  he  escaped  in  a 
boat  with  some  friends  ;  and  the  sailors  were  so  brave  and  un- 
selfish, that,  when  they  saw  him  rowing  away,  they  gave  three 
cheers,  while  they  themselves  were  going  down  forever. 

The  Merry  Monarch  having  got  rid  of  his  Parliament,  went 
to  work  to  make  himself  despotic  with  all  speed.  Having  had 
the  villany  to  order  the  execution  of  Oliver  Plunket,  Bishop  of 
Armagh,  falsely  accused  of  a  plot  to  establish  Popery  in  that 
country  by  means  of  a  French  army, — the  very  thing  this  royal 
traitor  was  himself  trying  to  do  at  home, — and  having  tried  to 
ruin  Lord  Shaftesbury  and  failed,  he  turned  his  hand  to  con- 
trolling the  corporations  all  over  the  country  ;  because,  if  he 
could  only  do  that,  he  could  get  what  juries  he  chose,  to  bring  in 
perjured  verdicts  and  could  get  what  members  he  chose  re- 
turned to  parliament.     These  merry  times  produced,  and  made 


348  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

chief  justice  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  a  drunken  ruffian  of 
the  name  of  Jeffreys  ;  a  red-faced,  swollen,  bloated,  horrible 
creature,  with  a  bullying,  roaring  voice,  and  a  more  savage 
nature  perhaps  than  was  ever  lodged  in  any  human  breast. 
This  monster  was  the  merry  monarch's  especial  favorite  ;  and 
he  testified  his  admiration  of  him  by  giving  him  a  ring  from 
his  own  finger,  which  the  people  used  to  call  Judge  Jeffreys' 
Bloodstone.  Him  the  king  employed  to  go  about  and  bully 
the  corporations,  beginning  with  London  ;  or,  as  Jeffreys  him- 
self elegantly  called  it,  *'  to  give  them  a  lick  with  the  rough  side 
of  his  tongue."  And  he  did  it  so  thoroughly,  that  they  soon 
became  the  basest  and  most  sycophantic  bodies  in  the  king- 
dom, except  the  University  of  Oxford,  which,  in  that  respect, 
was  quite  pre-eminent  and  unapproachable. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  (who  died  soon  after  the  king's  failure 
against  him),  Lord  William  Russell,  the  Duke  of  Monmouth, 
Lord  Howard,  Lord  Jersey,  Algernon  Sidney,  John  Hampden 
(grandson  of  the  great  Hampden),  and  some  others  used  to 
hold  a  council  together  after  the  dissolution  of  the  Parliament, 
arranging  what  it  might  be  necessary  to  do,  if  the  king  carried 
his  popish  plot  to  the  utmost  height.  Lord  Shaftesbury,  hav- 
ing been  much  the  most  violent  of  this  party,  brought  two 
violent  men  into  their  secrets, — Ramsey,  who  had  been  a  sol- 
dier in  the  Republican  army  ;  and  West,  a  lawyer.  These  two 
knew  an  old  officer  of  Cromwell's,  called  Rumbold,  who  had 
married  a  maltster's  widow,  and  so  had  come  into  possession 
of  a  solitary  dwelling  called  the  Rye  House,  near  Hoddesdon, 
in  Hertfordshire.  Rumbold  said  to  them  what  a  capital  place 
this  house  of  his  would  be  from  which  to  shoot  at  the  king, 
who  often  passed  there  going  to  and  fro  from  Newmarket. 
They  liked  the  idea,  and  entertained  it.  But  one  of  their  body 
gave  information  ;  and  they,  together  with  Shepherd,  a  wine- 
merchant,  Lord  Russell,  Algernon  Sidney,  Lord  Essex,  Lord 
Howard,  and  Hampden,  were  all  arrested. 

Lord  Russell  might  have  easily  escaped,  but  scorned  to  do 
so,  being  innocent  of  any  wrong  ;  Lord  Essex  might  have  easily 
escaped,  but  scorned  to  do  so,  lest  his  flight  should  prejudice 
Lord  Russell.  But  it  weighed  upon  his  mind  that  he  had 
brought  into  their  council  Lord  Howard, — who  now  turned  a 
miserable  traitor, — against  a  great  dislike  Lord  Russell  had 
always  had  of  him.  He  could  not  bear  the  reflection,  and  de- 
stroyed himself  before  Lord  Russell  was  brought  to  trial  at  the 
Old  Bailey. 

He  knew  very  well  that  he  had  nothing  to  hope,  having 


ENGLAND  UNDER  CHARLES  THE  SECOND.         34^ 

always  been  manful  in  the  Protestant  cause  against  the  two 
false  brothers,  the  one  on  the  throne,  and  the  other  standing 
next  to  it.  He  had  a  wife,  one  of  the  noblest  and  best  of 
women,  who  acted  as  his  secretary  on  his  trial,  who  comforted 
him  in  his  prison,  who  supped  with  him  on  the  night  before  he 
died,  and  whose  love  and  virtue  and  devotion  have  made  her 
name  imperishable.  Of  course,  he  was  found  guilty,  and  was 
sentenced  to  be  beheaded  in  Lincoln's  Inn-fields,  not  many 
yards  from  his  own  house.  When  he  had  parted  from  his 
children  on  the  evening  before  his  death,  his  wife  still  stayed 
with  him  until  ten  o'clock  at  night,  and  when  their  final  sepa- 
ration in  this  world  was  over,  and  he  had  kissed  her  many  times, 
he  still  sat  for  a  long  while  in  his  prison  talking  of  her  good- 
ness. Hearing  the  rain  fall  fast  at  that  time,  he  calmly  said, 
"  Such  a  rain  to-morrow  will  spoil  a  great  show,  which  is  a  dull 
thing  on  a  rainy  day."  At  midnight  he  went  to  bed,  and  slept 
till  four  j  even  when  his  servant  called  him,  he  fell  asleep  again 
while  his  clothes  were  being  made  ready.  He  rode  to  the  scaf- 
fold in  his  own  carriage,  attended  by  two  famous  clergymen, 
Tillotson  and  Burnet,  and  sang  a  psalm  to  himself  very  softly 
as  he  went  along.  He  was  as  quiet  and  steady  as  if  he  had 
been  going  out  for  an  ordinary  ride.  After  saying  that  he  wa$ 
surprised  to  see  so  great  a  crowd,  he  laid  down  his  head  upon 
the  block,  as  if  upon  the  pillow  of  his  bed,  and  had  it  struck 
off  at  the  second  blow.  His  noble  wife  was  busy  for  him  even 
then  ;  for  that  true-hearted  lady  printed  and  widely  circulated 
his  last  words,  of  which  he  had  given  her  a  copy.  They  made 
the  blood  of  all  the  honest  men  in  England  boil. 

The  University  of  Oxford  distinguished  itself  on  the  very 
same  day  by  pretending  to  believe  that  the  accusation  against 
Lord  Russell  was  true,  and  by  calling  the  king  in  a  written 
paper,  the  Breath  of  their  Nostrils  and  the  Anointed  of  the 
Lord.  This  paper  the  Parliament  afterwards  caused  to  be 
burned  by  the  common  hangman  ;  which  I  am  sorry  for,  as  1 
wish  it  had  been  framed  and  hung  up  in  some  public  place,  as 
a  monument  of  baseness  for  the  scorn  of  mankind. 

Next,  came  the  trial  of  Algernon  Sidney,  at  which  Jeffreys 
presided,  like  a  great  crimson  toad,  sweltering  and  swelling  with 
rage.  "  I  pray  God,  Mr.  Sidney,"  said  this  chief  justice  of  a 
merry  reign,  after  passing  sentence,  "  to  work  in  you  a  temper 
fit  to  go  to  the  other  world,  for  I  see  you  are  not  fit  for  this." 
"  My  lord,"  said  the  prisoner,  composedly  holding  out  his 
arm,  "feel  my  pulse,  and  see  if  I  be  disordered.  I  thank 
Heaven  I  never  was  in  better  temper  than  I  am  now."     Alger- 


3S? 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


non  Sidney  was  executed  on  Tower  Hill  on  the  7th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1683.  He  died  a  hero,  and  died,  in  his  own  words,  "for 
that  good  old  cause  in  which  he  had  been  engaged  from  his 
youth,  and  for  which  God  had  so  often  and  so  wonderfully  de- 
clared himself." 

The  Duke  of  Monmouth  had  been  making  his  uncle,  the 
Duke  of  York,  very  jealous,  by  going  about  the  country  in  a 
royal  sort  of  way,  playing  at  the  people's  games,  becoming  god- 
father to  their  children,  and  even  touching  for  the  king's  evit, 
or  stroking  the  faces  of  the  sick  to  cure  then, — though  for  the 
matter  of  that,  I  should  say  he  did  them  about  as  much  good  as 
any  crowned  king  could  have  done.  His  father  had  got  him  to 
write  a  letter  confessing  his  having  had  a  part  in  the  conspiracy 
for  which  Lord  Russell  had  been  beheaded  ;  but  he  was  ever  a 
weak  man,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  v/ritten  it,  he  was  ashamed  of 
it,  and  got  it  back  again.  For  this,  he  was  banished  to  the 
Netherlands  ;  but  he  soon  returned,  and  had  an  interview  with 
his  father,  unknown  to  his  uncle.  It  would  seem  that  he  was 
coming  into  the  Merry  Monarch's  favor  again,  and  the  Duke  of 
York  was  sliding  out  of  it  when  death  appeared  to  the  merry 
galleries  at  Whitehall,  and  astonished  the  debauched  lords  and 
gentlemen,  and  the  shameless  ladies,  very  considerably. 

On  Monday,  the  2d  of  February,  1685,  the  merry  pensioner 
and  servant  of  the  king  of  France  fell  down  in  a  fit  of  apoplexy. 
By  the  Wednesday  his  case  was  hopeless,  and  on  the  Thursday 
he  was  told  so.  As  he  made  a  difficulty  about  taking  the  sacra- 
ment from  the  Protestant  Bishop  of  Bath,  the  Duke  of  York 
got  all  who  were  present  away  from  the  bed,  and  asked  his 
brother,  in  a  whisper  if  he  should  send  for  a  Catholic  priest  ? 
The  king  replied,  "  For  God's  sake  brother  do  !  "  The  Duke 
smuggled  in,  up  the  back  stairs,  disguised  in  a  wig  and  gown 
a  priest  named  Huddleston,  who  had  saved  the  king's  life  after 
the  battle  of  Worcester, — telling  him  that  this  worthy  man  in 
the  wig  had  once  saved  his  body,  and  was  now  come,  to  save  his 
soul. 

The  Merry  Monarch  lived  through  that  night,  and  died  be- 
fore noon  on  the  next  day,  which  was  Friday,  the  6th.  Two  of 
the  last  things  he  said  were  of  a  human  sort,  and  your  remem- 
brance will  give  him  the  full  benefit  of  them.  When  the  queen 
sent  to  say  she  was  too  unwell  to  attend  him,  and  to  ask  his  par- 
don, he  said,  "  Alas  poor  woman  ;  she  beg  my  pardon ;  I  beg 
hers  with  all  my  heart.  Take  back  that  answer  to  her.  "  And 
he  also  said,  in  reference  to  Nell  Gwyn,  *'  Do  not  let  poor  Nelly 
8tarve. " 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  SECOND.  351 

He  died  in  the  fifty-fifth  year  of  his  age,  and  in  the  twenty- 
fifth  of  his  reign. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

ENGLAND   UNDER  JAMES   THE   SECOND. 

King  James  the  Second  was  a  man  so  very  disagreeable, 
that  even  the  best  historians  have  favored  his  brother  Charles,  as 
becoming,  by  comparison,  quite  a  pleasant  character.  The  one 
object  of  his  short  reign  was  to  re-establish  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion in  England ;  and  this  he  doggedly  pursued  with  such  a 
stupid  obstinacy  that  his  career  very  soon  came  to  a  close. 

The  first  thing  he  did  was  to  assure  his  council  that  he  would 
make  it  his  endeavor  to  preserve  the  government,  both  in  Church 
and  State,  as  it  was  by  law  established ;  and  that  he  would 
always  take  care  to  defend  and  support  the  Church.  Great 
public  acclamations  were  raised  over  this  fair  speech  ;  and  a 
great  deal  was  said,  from  the  pulpits  and  elsewhere,  about  the 
word  of  a  king  which  was  never  broken,  by  credulous  people 
'who  little  supposed  that  he  had  formed  a  secret  council  for 
Catholic  affairs,  of  which  a  mischievous  Jesuit  called  Father 
Petre,  was  one  of  the  chief  members.  With  tears  of  joy  in  his 
eyes,  he  received,  as  the  begin laing  of  his  pension  from  the  King 
of  France,  five  hundred  thousand  livres ;  yet,  with  a  mixture  of 
meanness  and  arrogance  that  belonged  to  his  contemptible 
character,  he  was  always  jealous  of  making  some  show  of  being 
independent  of  the  King  of  France,  while  he  pocketed  his 
money.  As — notwithstanding  his  publishing  two  papers  in 
favor  of  Popery  (and  not  likely  to  do  it  much  service,  I  should 
think),  written  by  the  king,  his  brother,  and  found  in  his  strong 
box  j  and  his  open  display  of  himself  attending  mass — the  Par- 
liament was  very  obsequious,  and  granted  him  a  large  sum  of 
money,  he  began  his  reign  with  a  belief  that  he  could  do  what 
he  pleased,  and  with  a  determination  to  do  it. 

Before  we  proceed  to  its  principal  events,  let  us  dispose  of 
Titus  Gates.  He  was  tried  for  perjury,  a  fortnight  after  the 
coronation,  and,  besides  being  very  heavily  fined,  was  sentenced 
to  stand  twice  in  the  pillory,  to  be  whipped  from  Aldgate  to 
Newgate  one  day,  and  from  Newgate  to  Tyburn  two  days  after- 


35*  ^  CHILD'S  HISTOK  r  OF  ENGLAND, 

wards,  and  to  stand  in  the  pillory  five  times  a  year  as  long 
as  he  lived.  This  fearful  sentence  was  actually  inflicted  on 
the  rascal.  Being  unable  to  stand  after  his  first  flogging,  he 
was  dragged  on  a  sledge  from  Nswgate  to  Tyburn,  and  flogged 
as  he  was  drawn  along.  He  wa3  so  strong  a  villain  that  he  did 
not  die  under  the  torture,  but  li\td  to  be  afterwards  pardoned 
and  rewarded,  though  not  to  be  ever  believed  in  any  more. 
Dangerfield,  the  only  other  one  of  that  crew  left  alive,  was  not 
so  fortunate.  He  was  almost  killed  by  a  whipping  from  New- 
gate to  Tyburn  ;  and,  as  if  that  were  not  punishment  enough,  a 
ferocious  barrister  of  Grey's  Inn  gave  him  a  poke  in  the  eye 
with  his  cane,  which  caused  his  death, — for  which  the  ferocious 
barrister  was  deservedly  tried  and  executed. 

As  soon  as  James  was  on  the  throne,  Argyle  and  Monmouth 
went  from  Brussels  to  Rotterdam,  and  attended  a  meeting  of 
Scottish  exiles  held  there  to  concert  measures  for  a  rising  in 
England.  It  was  agreed  that  Argyle  should  effect  a  landing  in 
Scotland,  and  Monmouth  in  England  ;  and  that  two  English 
men  should  be  sent  with  Argyle  to  be  in  his  confidence,  and  two 
Scotchmen  with  the  Duke  of  Monmouth. 

Argyle  was  the  first  to  act  upon  this  contract.  But  two  of 
his  men  being  taken  prisoners  at  the  Orkney  Islands,  the  gov- 
ernment became  aware  of  his  intention,  and  was  able  to  act 
against  him  with  such  vigor  as  to  prevent  his  raising  more  than 
two  or  three  thousand  Highlanders,  although  he  sent  a  fiery 
cross,  by  trusty  messengers,  from  clan  to  clan,  and  from  glen  to 
glen,  as  the  custom  then  was  when  those  wild  people  were  to  be 
excited  by  their  chiefs.  As  he  was  moving  towards  Glasgow 
with  his  small  force,  he  was  betrayed  by  some  of  his  followers, 
taken,  and  carried,  with  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back,  to  his 
old  prison  in  Edinburgh  Castle.  James  ordered  him  to  be  ex- 
ecuted, on  his  old,  shamefully  unjust  sentence,  within  three 
days  ;  and  he  appears  to  have  been  anxious  that  his  legs  should 
have  been  pounded  with  his  old  favorite,  the  Boot.  However, 
the  Boot  was  not  applied  ;  he  was  simply  beheaded,  and  his 
head  was  set  upon  the  top  of  Edinburgh  jail.  One  of  those 
Englishmen  who  had  been  assigned  to  him  was  that  old  soldier, 
Rumbold,  the  master  of  the  Rye  House.  He  was  sorely 
wounded,  and  within  a  week  after  Argyle  had  suffered  with 
great  courage,  was  brought  up  for  trial,  lest  he  should  die,  and 
disappoint  the  king.  He,  too,  was  executed,  after  defending 
himself  with  great  spirit,  and  saying  that  he  did  not  believe 
that  God  had  made  the  greater  part  of  mankind  to  carry  sad- 
dles on  their  backs,  and  bridles  in  their  mouths,  and  to  be  rid- 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  SECOND.  353 

den  by  a  few,  booted  and  spurred  for  the  purpose ;  in  whicli  1 
thoroughly  agree  with  Rumbold. 

The  Duke  of  Monmouth,  partly  through  being  detained  and 
partly  through  idling  his  time  away,  was  five  or  six  weeks  be- 
hind his  friend  when  he  landed  at  Lyme,  in  Dorset ;  having  at 
his  right  hand  an  unlucky  nobleman  called  Lord  Grey  of  Werk, 
who  of  himself  would  have  ruined  a  far  more  promising  expedi* 
tion.  He  immediately  set  up  his  standard  in  the  market-place, 
and  proclaimed  the  king  a  tyrant  and  a  i^opish  usurper,  and  I 
know  not  what  else ;  charging  him,  not  only  with  what  he  had 
done,  which  was  bad  enough,  but  with  what  neither  he  nor  any- 
body else  had  done,  such  as  setting  fire  to  London,  and  poison- 
ing the  late  king.  Raising  some  four  thousand  men  by  these 
means,  he  marched  on  to  Taunton,  where  there  were  many 
Protestant  dissenters  who  were  strongly  opposed  to  the  Catho» 
lies.  Here,  both  the  rich  and  poor  turned  out  to  receive  him, 
ladies  waved  a  welcome  to  him  from  all  the  windows  as  he 
passed  along  the  streets,  flowers  were  strewn  in  his  way,  and 
every  compliment  and  honor  that  could  be  devised  was  show- 
ered upon  him.  Among  the  rest,  twenty  young  ladies  came 
forward  in  their  best  clothes,  and  in  their  brightest  beauty,  and 
gave  him  a  Bible  ornamented  with  their  own  fair  hands,  to- 
gether with  other  presents. 

Encouraged  by  this  homage,  he  proclaimed  himself  king, 
and  went  on  to  Bridgewater.  But  here,  the  government  troops, 
under  the  Earl  of  Feversham,  were  close  at  hand  ;  and  he  was 
so  dispirited  at  finding  that  he  made  but  few  powerful  friends 
after  all,  that  it  was  a  question  whether  he  should  disband  his 
army  and  endeavor  to  escape.  It  was  resolved,  at  the  instance 
of  that  unlucky  Lord  Grey,  to  make  a  night  attack  on  the  king's 
army,  as  it  lay  encamped  on  the  edge  of  a  morass  called  Sedge- 
moor.  The  horsemen  were  commanded  by  the  same  unlucky 
lord,  who  was  not  a  brave  man.  He  gave  up  the  battle  almost 
at  the  first  obstacle,  which  was  a  deep  drain  ;  and  although  the 
poor  countrymen  who  had  turned  out  for  Monmouth  fought 
bravely  with  scythes,  poles,  pitchforks,  and  such  poor  weapons 
as  they  had,  they  were  soon  dispersed  by  the  trained  soldiers, 
and  fled  in  all  directions.  When  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  him- 
self fled  was  not  known  in  the  confusion ;  but  the  unlucky 
Lord  Grey  was  taken  early  next  day,  and  then  another  of  the 
party  was  taken,  who  confessed  that  he  had  parted  from  the 
duke  only  four  hours  before.  Strict  search  being  made,  he  was 
found  disguised  as  a  peasant,  hidden  in  a  ditch  under  fern  and 
nettles,  with  a  few  peas  in  his  pocket  which  he  had  gathered  in 


354 


A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


the  fields  to  eat.  The  only  other  articles  he  had  upon  hink 
were  a  few  papers  and  little  books,  one  of  the  latter  being  a 
strange  jumble,  in  his  own  writing,  of  charms,  songs,  recipes, 
and  prayers.  He  was  completely  broken.  He  wrote  a  miser- 
able letter  to  the  king  beseeching  and  entreating  to  be  allowed 
to  see  him.  When  he  was  taken  to  London,  and  conveyed 
tound  into  the  king's  presence,  he  crawled  to  him  on  his 
knees,  and  made  a  most  degrading  exhibition.  As  James  never 
forgave  or  relented  towards  anybody,  he  was  not  likely  to 
soften  towards  the  issuer  of  the  Lyme  proclamation,  so  he  told 
the  suppliant  to  prepare  for  death. 

On  the  15th  of  July,  1685,  this  unfortunate  favorite  of  the 
people  was  brought  out  to  die  on  Tower  Hill.  The  crowd  was 
immense,  and  the  tops  of  all  the  houses  were  covered  with 
gazers.  He  had  seen  his  wife,  the  daughter  of  the  Duke  of 
Buccleuch,  in  the  Tower,  and  had  talked  much  of  a  lady  whom 
he  loved  far  better, — the  Lady  Harriet  Wentworth, — who  was 
one  of  the  last  persons  he  remembered  in  his  life.  Before  lay- 
ing down  his  head  upon  the  block,  he  felt  the  edge  of  the  axe, 
•  and  told  the  executioner  that  he  feared  it  was  not  sharp  enough, 
and  that  the  axe  was  not  heavy  enough.  On  the  executioner 
replying  that  it  was  of  the  proper  kind,  the  duke  said,  "  I  pray 
you  have  a  care,  and  do  not  use  me  so  awkwardly  as  you  used 
my  Lord  Russell."  The  executioner,  made  nervous  by  this, 
and  trembling,  struck  once,  and  merely  gashed  him  in  the 
neck.  Upon  this,  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  raised  his  head,  and 
looked  the  mari  reproachfully  in  the  face.  Then  he  struck 
twice,  and  then  thrice,  and  then  threw  down  the  axe,  and  cried 
out  in  a  voice  of  horror  that  he  could  not  finish  that  work. 
The  sheriffs,  however,  threatening  him  with  what  should  be 
done  to  himself  if  he  did  not,  he  took  it  up  again,  and  struck  a 
fourth  time  and  a  fifth  time.  Then  the  wretched  head  at  last 
fell  off,  and  James,  Duke  of  Monmouth,  was  dead,  in  the 
thirty-sixth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  a  showy,  graceful  man, 
with  many  popular  qualities,  and  had  found  much  favor  in  the 
open  hearts  of  the  English. 

The  atrocities  committed  by  the  government  which  followed 
this  Monmouth  rebellion  form  the  blackest  and  most  lament- 
able page  in  English  history.  The  poor  peasants,  having  been 
dispersed  with  great  loss,  and  their  leaders  having  been  taken, 
one  would  think  that  the  implacable  king  might  have  been 
satisfied.  But  no ;  he  let  loose  upon  them,  among  other  in- 
tolerable monsters,  a  Colonel  Kirk,  who  had  served  against 
the  Moors,  and  whose  soldiers — called  by  the  people,  Kirk's 


ENGLAND  UND£R  JAMES  THE  SECOND.  355 

lambs  because  they  bore  a  lamb  upon  their  flag,  as  the  emblem 
of  Cnristianity — were  worthy  of  their  leader,  The  atrocities 
committed  by  these  demons  in  human  shape  are  far  too  horri- 
ble to  be  related  here.  It  is  enough  to  say,  that  besides  most 
ruthlessly  murdering  and  robbing  them,  and  ruining  them  by 
makmg  them  buy  their  pardons  at  the  price  of  all  they  pos- 
sessed, it  was  one  of  Kirk's  favorite  amusements,  as  he  and 
his  officers  sat  drinking  after  dinner,  and  toasting  the  king,  to 
have  batches  of  prisoners  hanged  outside  the  windows  for  the 
company's  diversion  ;  and  that  when  their  feet  quivered  in  the 
convulsions  of  death,  he  used  to  swear  that  they  should  have 
.music  to  their  dancing  and  would  order  the  drums  to  beat  and 
the  trumpets  to  play.  The  detestable  king  informed  him,  as 
an  acknowledgment  of  these  services,  that  he  was  "  very  well 
satisfied  with  his  proceedings."  But  the  king's  great  delight 
was  in  the  proceedings  of  Jeffreys,  now  a  peer,  who  went  down 
into  the  West,  with  four  other  judges,  to  try  persons  accused 
of  having  had  any  share  in  the  rebellion.  The  king  pleasantly 
called  this  "Jeffreys'  campaign."  The  people  down  in  that 
part  of  the  country  remember  it  to  this  day  as  The  Bloody 
Assize. 

It  began  at  Winchester,  where  a  poor  deaf  old  lady,  Mrs. 
Alicia  Lisle,  the  widow  of  one  of  the  judges  of  Charles  the 
First  (who  had  been  murdered  abroad  by  some  royalist  assas- 
sins), was  charged  with  having  given  shelter  in  her  house  to 
two  fugitives  from  Sedgemoor.  Three  times  the  jury  refused 
to  find  her  guilty,  until  Jeffreys  bullied  and  frightened  them 
into  that  false  verdict.  When  he  had  extorted  it  from  them, 
he  said,  "  Gentlemen,  if  I  had  been  one  of  you,  and  she  had 
been  my  own  mother,  I  would  have  found  her  guilty," — as  I 
daresay  he  would.  He  sentenced  her  to  be  burned  aUve  that 
very  afternoon.  The  clergy  of  the  Cathedral  and  some  others 
interfered  in  her  favor,  and  she  was  beheaded  within  a  week. 
As  a  high  mark  of  his  approbation,  the  king  made  Jeffreys 
Lord  Chancellor ;  and  he  then  went  on  to  Dorchester,  to 
Exeter,  to  Taunton,  and  to  Wells.  It  is  astonishing,  when  we 
read  of  the  enormous  injustice  and  barbarity  of  this  beast,  to 
know  that  no  one  struck  him  dead  on  the  judgment-seat.  It 
was  enough  for  any  man  or  woman  to  be  accused  by  an 
enemy,  before  Jeffreys,  to  be  found  guilty  of  high  treason. 
One  man  who  pleaded  not  guilty,  he  ordered  to  be  taken  out 
01  court  upon  the  instant,  and  hanged;  and  this  so  terrified 
the  prisoners  in  general  that  they  mostly  pleaded  guilty  at 
Ooce.    At  Dorchester  alone,  in  the  course  of  a  few  days,  Jeffreys 


356  ^  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND, 

hanged  eighty  people  ;  besides  whipping,  transporting,  imprison- 
ing, and  selling  as  slaves,  great  numbers.  He  executed,  in  all 
two  hundred  and  fifty  or  three  hundred. 

These  executions  took  place  among  the  neighbors  and  friends 
of  the  sentenced  in  thirty-six  towns  and  villages.  The  bodies 
were  mangled,  steeped  in  caldrons  of  boiling  pitch  and  tai,  ana 
hung  up  by  the  roadsides,  in  the  streets,  ovei  the  very  churches. 
The  sight  and  smell  of  heads  and  limbs,  the  hissing  and  bub- 
bling of  the  infernal  caldrons,  and  the  tears  and  terrors  ot  the 
people,  were  dreadful  beyond  all  description.  One  rustic,  who 
was  forced  to  steep  the  remains  in  the  black  pot,  was  evci 
afterwards  called  "  Tom  Boilman."  The  hangman  has  ever 
since  been  called  Jack  Ketch,  because  a  man  of  that  name 
went  hanging  and  hanging,  all  day  long,  in  the  train  of  Jeffreys. 
You  will  hear  much  of  the  horrors  of  the  great  French  Revo- 
lution. Many  and  terrible  they  were,  there  is  no  doubt ;  but  I 
know  nothing  worse  done  by  the  maddened  people  of  FrancC;, 
in  that  awful  time,  then  was  done  by  the  highest  judge  in  Eng- 
land, with  the  express  approval  of  the  King  of  England,  in  the 
Bloody  Assize. 

Nor  was  even  this  all.  Jeffreys  was  as  fond  of  money  for 
himself  as  of  misery  for  others  ;  and  he  sold  pardons  wholesale 
to  fill  his  pockets.  The  king  ordered,  at  one  time,  a  thousand 
prisoners  to  be  given  to  certain  of  his  favorites,  in  order  that 
they  might  bargain  with  them  for  their  pardons.  The  young 
ladies  of  Taunton  who  had  presented  the  Bible  were  bestowed 
upon  the  maids  of  honor  at  court ;  and  those  precious  ladies 
made  very  hard  bargains  with  them  indeed.  When  the  Bloody 
Assize  was  at  its  most  dismal  height,  the  king  was  diverting 
himself  with  horse-races  in  the  very  place  where  Mrs.  Lisle  had 
been  executed.  When  Jeffreys  had  done  his  worst,  and  came 
home  again,  he  was  particularly  complimented  in  the  Royal 
Gazette ;  and  when  the  king  heard  that,  through  drunkenness 
and  raging,  he  was  very  ill,  his  odious  majesty  remarked  that 
such  another  man  could  not  easily  be  found  in  England.  Be- 
sides all  this,  a  former  sheriff  of  London,  named  Cornish,  was 
hanged  within  sight  of  his  own  house,  after  an  abominably  con- 
ducted trial,  for  having  had  a  share  in  the  Rye  House  Plot,  on 
evidence  given  by  Rumsey, which  that  villain  was  obliged  to 
confess  was  directly  opposed  to  the  evidence  he  had  given  on 
the  trial  of  Lord  Russell.  And  on  the  very  same  day,  a  worthy 
widow  named  Elizabeth  Gaunt,  was  burned  alive  at  Tyburn,  for 
having  sheltered  a  wretch  who  himself  gave  evidence  against 
ker.    She  settled  the  fuel  about  herself  with  her  own  hands,  sp 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  SECOND.  357 

that  the  flames  should  reacli  liei  quickly  .  and  nobly  snid,  with 
her  last  breath,  that  she  had  obeyed  the  sacred  commands  of 
God  to  give  refuge  to  the  outcast,  and   not  to  betray   the  wan- 
derer. 

After  all  this  hanging,  beheading,  burning,  boiling,  mutila- 
ting, exposing,  robbing,  transporting,  and  selling  into  slavery, 
of  his  unhappy  subjects,  tiie  king  not  unnaturally  thought  that 
he  could  do  whatever  he  would.  So  he  went  to  work  to  chanf;e 
the  religion  of  the  country  with  all  possible  speed  ;  and  what 
he  did  was  this. 

He  first  of  all  tried  to  get  rid  of  what  was  called  the  Test 
Act — which  prevented  the  Catholics  from  holding  public  employ- 
ments— by  his  own  power  of  dispensing  with  the  penalties. 
He  tried  it  in  one  case  ;  and  eleven  of  the  twelve  judges  decid- 
ing in  his  favor,  he  exercised  it  in  three  others,  being  those  of 
three  dignitaries  of  University  College,  Oxford,  who  had  be- 
come Papists,  and  whom  he  kept  in  their  places  and  sanctioned. 
He  revived  the  hated  Ecclesiastical  Commission,  to  get  rid  of 
Compton,  Bishop  of  London,  who  manfully  opposed  him.  He 
solicited  the  pope  to  favor  England  with  an  ambassador,  which 
the  pope  (who  was  a  sensible  man  then)  rather  unwillingly  did. 
He  flourished  Father  Petre  before  the  eyes  of  the  people  on 
all  possible  occasions.  He  favored  the  establishment  of  con- 
vents in  several  parts  of  London.  He  was  delighted  to  have 
the  streets,  and  even  the  court  itself  filled  with  monks  and 
friars  in  the  habits  of  their  orders.  He  constantly  endeavored 
to  make  Catholics  of  the  Protestants  about  him.  He  held 
private  interviews,  which  he  called  "  closetings,"  with  those 
members  of  Parliaments  who  held  offices  to  persuade  them  to 
consent  to  the  design  he  had  in  view.  When  they  did  not  con- 
sent, they  were  removed,  or  resigned  of  themselves,  and  their 
places  were  given  to  Catholics.  He  displaced  Protestant  officers 
from  the  army,  by  every  means  in  his  power,  and  got  Catholics 
into  their  places  too.  He  tried  the  same  thing  with  the  cor- 
porations, and  also  (though  not  so  successfully)  with  the  lord 
lieutenants  of  counties.  To  terrify  the  people  into  the  endur- 
ance of  all  these  measures,  he  kept  an  army  of  fifteen  thousand 
men  encamped  on  Hounslow  Heath,  where  mass  was  openly 
performed  in  the  general's  tent,  and  where  priests  went  among  the 
soldiers,  endeavoring  to  persuade  them  to  become  Catholics.  For 
circulating  a  paper  among  those  men  advising  them  to  be  true 
to  their  religion,  a  Protestant  clergyman,  named  Johnson,  the 
Chaplain  of  the  late  Lord  Russell,  was  actually  sentenced  to 
Stand  three  times  in  the  pillory,  and  was  actually  whipped  fronj 


358  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

Newgate  to  Tyburn.  He  dismissed  his  own  brother-in-law  from 
his  council  because  he  was  a  Protestant,  and  made  a  privy 
councillor  of  the  before-mentioned  Father  Petre.  He  handed 
Ireland  over  to  Richard  Talbot,  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  a  worthless, 
dissolute  knave  who  played  the  same  game  there  for  his  master, 
and  who  played  the  deeper  game  for  himself  of  one  day  put- 
ting it  under  the  protection  of  the  French  king.  In  going  to 
tliese  extremities,  every  man  of  sense  and  judgment  among  the 
Catholics,  from  the  pope  to  a  porter,  knew  that  the  king  was  a 
mere  bigoted  fool,  who  would  undo  himself  and  the  cause  he 
sought  to  advance  ;  but  he  was  deaf  to  all  reason  ;  and,  happily 
for  England  ever  afterwards,  went  tumbling  off  his  throne  in 
his  own  blind  way. 

A  spirit  began  to  arise  in  the  country,  which  the  besotted 
blunderer  little  expected.  He  first  found  it  out  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge.  Having  made  a  Catholic  a  dean  at  Oxford 
without  any  opposition,  he  tried  to  make  a  monk  a  master  of 
arts  at  Cambridge  ;  which  attempt  the  university  resisted,  and 
defeated  him.  He  then  went  back  to  his  favorite  Oxford.  On 
the  death  of  the  President  of  Magdalen  College,  he  com- 
manded that  there  should  be  elected  to  succeed  him,  one  Mr.  An- 
thony Farmer,  whose  only  recommendation  was,  that  he  was  of 
the  king's  religion.  The  university  plucked  up  courage  at  last, 
and  refused.  The  king  substituted  another  man,  and  it  still 
refused,  resolving  to  stand  by  its  own  election  of  a  Mr.  Hough. 
The  dull  tyrant,  upon  this,  punished  Mr.  Hough,  and  five-and 
twenty  more,  by  causing  them  to  be  expelled,  and  declared 
incapable  of  holding  any  church  preferment ;  then  he  pro- 
ceeded to  what  he  supposed  to  be  his  highest  step,  but  to  what 
was,  in  fact,  his  last  plunge  headforemost  in  his  tumble  off  his 
throne. 

He  had  issued  a  declaration  that  there  should  be  no  relig- 
ious tests  or  fDenal  laws,  in  order  to  let  in  the  Catholics  more 
easily  ;  but  the  Protestant  dissenters,  unmindful  of  themselves, 
had  gallantly  joined  the  regular  church  in  opposing  it  tooth  and 
nail.  The  king  and  Father  Petre  now  resolved  to  have  that 
read,  on  a  certain  Sunday,  in  all  the  churches,  and  to  order  it 
to  be  circulated  for  that  purpose  by  the  bishops.  The  latter 
took  counsel  with  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  was  in 
disgrace ;  and  they  resolved  that  the  declaration  should  not  be 
read,  and  that  they  would  petition  the  king  against  it.  The 
archbishop  himself  wrote  out  the  petition  ;  and  six  bishops 
went  into  the  king's  bedchamber  the  same  night  to  present  it, 
to  his  infinite  astonishment.     The  next  day  was  the  Sunday 


ENGLAND  UNDER  JAMES  THE  SECOND.  359 

fixed  for  the  reading,  and  it  was  only  read  by  two  hundred 
clergymen  out  of  ten  thousand.  The  king  resolved  against  all 
advice,  to  prosecute  the  bishops  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  . 
and  within  three  weeks  they  were  summoned  before  the  Privy 
Council,  and  committed  to  the  Tower.  As  the  six  bishops  were 
taken  to  that  dismal  place  by  water,  the  people,  who  were  as 
sembled  in  immense  numbers,  fell  upon  their  knees  and  wep: 
for  them,  and  prayed  for  them.  When  they  got  to  the  Tower, 
the  officers  and  soldiers  on  guard  besought  them  for  their  bless 
ing.  While  they  were  confined  there,  the  soldiers  every  day 
drank  to  their  release  with  loud  shouts.  When  they  we:e 
brought  up  to  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  for  their  trial,  whic'.i 
the  attorney-general  said  was  for  the  high  offence  of  censurin;.^ 
the  government,  and  giving  their  opinion  about  affairs  of  state, 
they  were  attended  by  similar  multitudes,  and  surrounded  by  a 
throng  of  noblemen  and  gentlemen.  When  the  jury  were  01: t 
at  seven  o'clock  at  night  to  consider  of  their  verdict,  everybodv 
(except  the  king)  knew  that  they  would  rather  starve  than  yiel  ! 
to  the  king's  brewer,  who  was  one  of  them,  and  wanted  a  verdict 
for  his  customer.  When  they  came  into  court  next  morninr  , 
after  resisting  the  brewer  all  night,  and  gave  a  verdict  of  nci 
guilty,  such  a  shout  rose  up  in  Westminster  Hall  as  it  had  never 
heard  before  j  and  it  was  passed  on  among  the  people  away  t.. 
Temple  Bar,  and  away  again  to  the  Tower.  It  did  not  pas  • 
only  to  the  east,  but  passed  to  the  west  too,  until  it  reached  the 
camp  at  Hounslow,  where  the  fifteen  thousand  soldiers  took  i: 
up  and  echoed  it.  And  still  when  the  dull  king,  who  was  then 
with  the  Lord  Feversham,  heard  the  mighty  roar,  asked  in 
alarm  what  it  was,  and  was  told  that  it  was  "  nothing  but  the 
acquittal  of  the  bishops,"  he  said,  in  his  dogged  way,  "  Call 
you  that  nothing?     It  is  so  much  tr.e  worse  for  them."' 

Between  the  petition  and  the  trial,  the  queesi  had  _£;i\en 
birth  to  a  son,  which  Father  Petre  ratlier  thought  was  owinji  to 
St.  Winifred.  But  I  dou]:>t  if  St.  ^^'i^ifred  had  much  to  do  with 
it  as  the  king's  friend,  inasmuch  as  the-  entirely  new  prospect 
of  a  Catholic  successor  (for  both  the  king's  daughters  were 
Protestants  (determined  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  Danby,  and 
Devonshire,  Lord  Lumley,  the  Bishop  of  London,  Admiral 
Russell,  and  Colonel  Sidney,  to  invite  the  Prince  of  Orange 
over  to  England.  The  Royal  Mole,  seeing  his  danger  at  last, 
made,  in  his  fright,  many  great  concessions,  besides  raising  an 
army  of  forty  thousand  men  ;  but  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  not 
the  man  for  James  the  Second  to  cope  with.  His  preparations 
were  extraordinarily  vigorous,  and  his  mind  was  resolved. 


30V.  /  CHILD' ^  HTSTCRY  OF  ENGLAIVD. 

For  a  fortnight  after  the  prince  was  ready  to  sait  for  Eng- 
land, a  great  wind  from  the  west  prevented  the  departure  of 
his  fleet.  Even  when  the  wind  lulled,  and  it  did  sail,  it  was 
dispersed  by  a  storm,  and  was  obliged  to  put  back  to  refit.  At 
last,  on  the  ist  of  November,  1688,  the  Protestant  east-wind,  as 
it  was  long  called,  began  to  blow ;  and  on  the  3d,  the  people 
of  Dover  and  the  people  of  Calais  saw  a  fleet  twenty  miles  long 
sailing  gallantly  by,  between  the  two  places.  On  Monday,  the 
5th,  it  anchored  at  Torbay,  in  Devonshire ;  and  the  prince, 
with  a  splendid  retinue  of  officers  and  men  marched  into  Exeter. 
But  the  people  in  that  western  part  of  the  country  had  suffered 
so  much  in  the  Bloody  Assize,  that  they  had  lost  heart.  Few 
people  joined  him  ;  and  he  began  to  think  of  returning,  and 
publishing  the  invitation  he  had  received  :^rom  those  lords,  as 
his  justification  for  having  come  at  all.  /.:  this  crisis  some  of 
the  gentry  joined  him  ;  the  royal  army  began  to  falter ;  an  en- 
gagement was  signed,  by  which  all  who  set  their  hands  to  it 
declared  that  they  would  support  one  another  in  defence  of  the 
]aws  and  liberties  of  the  three  kingdoms,  of  the  Protestant 
religion,  and  of  the  Prince  of  Orange.  From  that  time  the 
cause  received  no  check ;  the  greatest  towns  in  England  began, 
one  after  another,  to  declare  for  the  prince ;  and  he  knew  that 
it  was  all  safe  with  him  when  the  University  of  Oxford  offered 
to  melt  down  its  plate,  if  he  wanted  any  money. 

By  this  time  the  king  was  running  about  in  a  pitiable  way, 
touching  people  for  the  king's  evil  :.n  one  place,  reviewing  his 
troops  in  another,  and  bleeding  from  the  nose  in  a  third.  The 
young  prince  was  sent  to  Portsmouth,  Father  Petre  went  off 
like  a  shot  to  France,  and  there  was  a  general  and  swift  dis- 
persal of  all  the  priests  and  friars.  One  after  another,  the 
king's  most  important  officers  and  friends  deserted  him,  and 
went  over  to  the  prince.  In  the  night  his  daughter  Anne  fled 
from  Whitehall  Palace  ;  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  who  had 
once  been  a  soldier,  rode  before  her  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his 
hand,  and  pistols  at  his  saddle.  "  God  help  me  !  "  cried  the 
miserable  king;  "my  very  children  have  forsaken  me."  In 
his  wildness,  after  debating  with  such  lords  as  were  in  London, 
whether  he  should  or  should  not  call  a  parliament,  and  after 
naming  three  of  them  to  negotiate  with  the  prince,  he  resolved 
to  fly  to  France.  He  had  the  little  Prince  of  Wales  brought 
back  from  Portsmouth  ;  and  the  child  and  the  queen  crossed 
the  river  to  Lambeth  in  an  open  boat,  on  a  miserable,  wet 
night,  and  got  safely  away.  This  was  on  the  night  of  the  9th 
of  December. 


ENGLAND  UNDER  /AMES  TTTE  SECOND,  361 

At  one  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  nth,  the  king,  who 
had,  in  the  mean  time,  received  a  letter  from  the  Prince  of 
Orange,  stating  his  objects,  got  out  of  bed,  told  Lord  North- 
umberland, who  lay  in  his  room,  not  to  open  the  door  until  the 
usual  hour  in  the  morning,  and  went  down  the  back  stairs  (the 
same  I  suppose  by  which  the  priest  in  the  wig  and  gown  had 
come  up  to  his  brother),  and  crossed  the  river  in  a  small  boat, 
sinking  the  great  seal  of  England  by  the  way.  Horses  having 
been  provided,  he  rode,  accompanied  by  Sir  Edward  Hales,  to 
Feversham,  where  he  embarked  in  a  custom-house  hoy.  The 
master  of  this  hoy,  wanting  more  ballast,  ran  into  the  Isle  of 
Sheppy  to  get  it,  where  the  fisherman  and  smugglers  crowded 
about  the  boat,  and  informed  the  king  of  their  suspicions  that 
he  was  a  "hatchet-faced  Jesuit."  As  they  took  his  money,  and 
would  not  let  him  go,  he  told  them  who  he  was,  and  that  the 
Prince  of  Orange  wanted  to  take  his  life  ;  and  he  began  to 
scream  for  a  boat, — and  then  to  cry,  because  he  had  lost  a 
piece  of  wood  on  his  ride  which  he  called  a  fragment  of  our 
Saviour's  cross.  He  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  lord 
lieutenant  of  the  county,  and  his  detention  was  made  known  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange  at  Windsor, — who,  only  wanting  to  get 
rid  of  him,  and  not  caring  where  he  went,  so  that  he  went 
away,  was  very  much  disconcerted  that  they  did  not  let  him  go. 
However,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  have  him  brought 
back,  with  some  state  in  the  way  of  Life  Guards,  to  Whitehall. 
And  as  soon  as  he  got  there,  in  his  infatuation,  he  heard  mass 
and  set  a  Jesuit  to  say  grace  at  his  public  dinner. 

The  people  had  been  thrown  into  the  strangest  state  of  con- 
fusion by  his  flight,  and  had  taken  it  into  their  heads  that  the 
Irish  part  of  the  army  were  going  to  murder  the  Protestants. 
Therefore,  they  set  the  bells  a-ringing,  and  lighted  watch-fires, 
and  burned  Catholic  chapels,  and  looked  about  in  all  directions 
for  Father  Petre  and  the  Jesuits,  while  the  pope's  ambassador 
was  running  away  in  the  dress  of  a  footman.  They  found  no 
Jesuits  ;  but  a  man,  who  had  once  been  a  frightened  witness 
before  Jeffreys  in  court,  saw  a  swollen  drunken  face  looking 
through  a  window  down  at  Wapping,  which  he  well  remembered. 
The  face  was  in  a  sailor's  dress  ;  but  he  knew  it  to  be  the  face 
of  that  accursed  judge,  and  he  seized  him.  The  people,  to 
their  lasting  honor,  did  not  tear  him  to  pieces.  After  knocking 
him  about  a  little,  they  took  him,  in  the  basest  agonies  of  terror, 
to  the  lord  mayor,  who  sent  him,  at  his  own  shrieking  petition, 
to  the  Tower  for  safety.     There  he  died. 

Their  bewilderment  continuing,  the  people  now  lighted  bon- 


362  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

fires  and  made  rejoicings,  as  if  they  had  any  reason  to  be  glad 
to  have  the  king  back  again  !  But  his  stay  was  very  short ;  foi 
the  EngHsh  guards  were  removed  from  Whitehall,  Dutch  guards 
were  marched  up  to  it,  and  he  was  told  by  one  of  his  late  min- 
isters that  the  prince  would  enter  London  next  day,  and  he 
had  better  go  to  Ham.  He  said  Ham  was  a  cold,  damp  place, 
and  he  would  rather  go  to  Rochester.  He  thought  himself 
very  cunning  in  this,  as  he  meant  to  escape  from  Rochester  to 
France.  The  Prince  of  Orange  and  his  friends  knew  that  per- 
fectly well,  and  desired  nothing  more.  So  he  went  to  Grave- 
send,  in  his  royal  barge,  attended  by  certain  lords,  and  watched 
by  Dutch  troops,  and  pitied  by  the  generous  people,  who  were 
far  more  forgiving  than  he  had  ever  beai,  when  they  saw  him 
in  his  humiliation.  On  the  night  of  the  23d  of  December,  not 
even  then  understanding  that  everybody  wanted  to  get  rid  of 
him,  he  went  out  absurdly,  through  his  Rochester  garden,  down 
to  the  Medway,  and  got  away  to  France,  where  he  rejoined  the 
queen. 

There  had  been  a  council,  in  his  absence,  of  the  lords  and 
the  authorities  of  London.  When  the  prince  came,  on  the  day 
after  the  king's  departure,  he  summoned  the  lords  to  meet  him, 
and  soon  afterwards  all  those  who  had  served  in  any  of  the 
parliaments  of  King  Charles  the  Second.  It  was  finally  re- 
solved by  these  authorities  that  the  throne  was  vacant  by  the 
conduct  of  King  James  the  Second  ;  that  it  was  inconsistent 
with  the  safety  and  welfare  of  this  Protestant  kingdom  to  be 
governed  by  a  popish  prince  ;  that  the  Prince  and  Princess  of 
Orange  should  be  king  and  queen  during  their  lives  and  the 
life  of  the  survivor  of  them ;  and  that  their  children  should 
succeed  them,  if  they  had  any.  That  if  they  had  none,  the 
Princess  Anne  and  her  children  should  succeed ;  that  if  she 
had  none,  the  heirs  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  should  succeed. 

On  the  13th  of  January,  1689,  the  prince  and  princess, 
sitting  on  a  throne  in  Whitehall,  bound  themselves  to  these 
conditions.  The  Protestant  religion  was  established  in  Eng- 
land, and  England's  great  and  glorious  revolution  was  com- 
plete. 


CONCLUSION, 


363 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

CONCLUSION. 

I  HAVE  now  arrived  at  the  close  of  my  little  history.  The 
events  which  succeeded  the  famous  revolution  of  1688  would 
neither  be  easily  related  nor  easily  understood  in  such  a  book 
as  this. 

William  and  Mary  reigned  together  five  years.  After  the 
death  of  his  good  wife,  William  occupied  the  throne  alone  for 
seven  years  longer.  During  his  reign,  on  the  i6th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1 70 1,  the  poor  weak  creature  who  had  once  been  James 
the  Second  of  England,  died  in  France.  In  the  mean  time  he 
had  done  his  utmost  (which  was  not  much)  to  cause  William  to 
be  assassinated,  and  to  regain  his  lost  dominions.  James's 
son  was  declared,  by  the  French  king,  the  rightful  King  of 
England  ;  and  was  called  in  France  The  Chevalier  St.  George, 
and  in  England,  The  Pretender.  Some  infatuated  people  in 
England,  and  particularly  in  Scotland,  took  up  the  Pretender's 
cause  from  time  to  time, — as  if  the  country  had  not  had  Stuarts 
enough  !  and  many  lives  were  sacrificed,  and  much  misery  was 
occasioned.  King  William  died  on  Sunday,  the  7th  of  March, 
1702,  of  the  consequences  of  an  accident  occasioned  by  his 
horse  stumbling  with  him.  He  was  always  a  brave,  patriotic 
prince,  and  a  man  of  remarkable  abilities.  His  manner  was 
cold,  and  he  made  but  few  friends  ;  but  he  had  truly  loved  his 
queen.  When  he  was  dead,  a  lock  of  her  hair  in  a  ring  was 
found  tied  with  a  black  ribbon  round  his  left  arm. 

He  was  succeeded  by  the  Princess  Anne,  a  popular  queen, 
who  reigned  twelve  years.  In  her  reign,  in  the  month  of  Ma\', 
1707,  the  union  between  England  and  Scotland  was  effected, 
and  the  two  countries  were  incorporated  under  the  name  of 
Great  Britain,  Then,  from  the  year  17 14  to  the  year  1830, 
reigned  the  four  Georges. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  1745,  that  the 
Pretender  did  his  last  mischief,  and  made  his  last  appearance. 
Being  an  old  man  by  that  time,  he  and  the  Jacobites — as  his 
friends  were  called — put  forward  his  son,  Charles  Edward, 
known  as  the  Young  Chevalier.  The  Highlanders  of  Scotland, 
an  extremely  troublesome  and  wrong-headed  race  on  the  sub- 


36|  4    CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

ject  of  the  Stuarts,  espoused  his  cause,  and  he  joined  them ; 
and  there  was  a  Scottish  rebellion  to  make  him  king,  in  which 
many  gallant  and  devoted  gentlemen  lost  their  lives.  It  was  a 
hard  matter  for  Charles  Edward  to  escape  abroad  again,  with 
a  high  price  on  his  head  ;  but  the  Scottish  people  were  extraor- 
dinarily faithful  to  him,  and,  after  undergoing  many  romantic 
adventures,  not  unlike  those  of  Charles  the  Second,  he  escaped 
to  France.  A  number  of  charming  stories  and  delightful  songs 
arose  out  of  the  Jacobite  feelings,  and  belong  to  the  Jacobite 
times.  Otherwise  I  think  the  Stuarts  were  a  public  nuisance 
altogether. 

It  was  in  the  reign  of  George  the  Third  that  England  lost 
North  America,  by  persisting  in  taxing  her  without  her  own 
consent.  That  immense  country,  made  independent  under 
Washington,  and  left  to  itself,  became  the  United  States,  one 
of  the  greatest  nations  of  the  earth.  In  these  times  in  which  I 
write,  it  is  honorably  remarkable  for  protecting  its  subjects, 
wherever  they  may  travel,  with  a  dignity  and  a  determination 
which  is  a  model  for  England.  Between  you  and  me,  England 
has  rather  lost  ground  in  this  respect  since  the  days  of  Oliver 
Cromwell. 

The  union  of  Great  Britain  with  Ireland — which  had  been 
getting  on  very  ill  by  itself — took  place  in  the  reign  of  George 
the  Third,  on  the  2d  of  July,  1788. 

William  the  Fourth  succeeded  George  the  Fourth,  in  the 
year  1830,  and  reigned  seven  years.  Queen  Victoria,  his 
niece,  the  only  child  of  the  Duke  of  Kent,  the  fourth  son  of 
Geofge  the  Third,  came  to  the  throne  on  the  20th  of  June, 
1837.  She  was  married  to  Prince  Albert  of  Saxe  Gotha  on 
the  10th  of  February  1840.  She  is  very  good,  and  much  be- 
loved.    So  I  end,  like  the  crier,  with 


God  Save  the  Que*  I 


x^ 


14  DAY  USE 

RFTURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  dare  stamped  below, 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

Tel.  No.  642-3405 
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